How Pinterest has put people back into the stores

The survey asked nearly 3,000 social media users in the UK and North America about their shopping habits.

Key summary of the report:
• 26% reported regularly engaging in showrooming only to price-compare and buy it for less money online.
• While in comparison, the good news for retailers is that 41% of respondents said they practice what is being called 'reverse showrooming,' where customers browse online and then purchase in stores.
• Pinterest is an especially popular driver of in-store sales: 21% of the Pinterest users surveyed said they bought an item in-store after pinning, re-pinning, or liking it with 36% of users under 35 claiming to do this.
• Vision Critical found that 50% of the items that caught user's attention were found while they were casually browsing Pinterest itself – 24% on a stranger's board, 19% on a friends, and 7% on a retailers. Another 10% came from Pinterest searches.

Unlike traditional showrooming, which is spurred by e-commerce giants like Amazon and eBay, 'reverse showrooming' seems to have its roots in social media and social commerce: friend and stranger recommendations can inspire shoppers' purchase decisions, both offline and online.

Pinterest for craft businesses
Pinterest has taken note of the huge popularity of its site among crafters and those who like to try their hand at DIY, revealing that the 'DIY and Crafts' category is one of its most widely used, noting particularly large amounts of traffic in holiday-related or seasonal crafts. And with Christmas rapidly approaching, now would be a key time to get your Pinterest boards up to scratch. When you consider the extremely high conversion rates of Pinterest it would serve you well to put effort into your boards when operating in the craft or DIY industries. According to recent surveys, Pinterest consistently delivers high quality traffic to sites, and with a high percentage of female users the target audience is perfect for crafters selling both online and in store. So, if you're a retailer, or a small home crafter and you've not quite got to grips with Pinterest, now is the time to give it a go. You'll be opening up an excellent opportunity to utilise what is the shop window of choice for so many potential consumers.

Create a Pinterest Business Account
Recently, Pinterest started offering businesses a business account rather than using a personal account. A personal account can be converted into a business account so there is no need to start a new one and rebuild your images. The advantage of a business account is that you have additional features such as analytics and also the option to select a business category. To convert to a business account go to https://www.pinterest.com/business/convert. The major change is the terms of service. If you are pinning for a business you must convert your account as just like other social media platforms you must abide by certain etiquette. For a full guide, visit: http://business.pinterest.com/tos.

Do's and Don'ts of pinning
Do repin other user's images.
Do pin from your own website.
Do make sure that images are a readable size
Do add the URL of the website from which you have pinned.
Do watch how much time you spend as you can easy lose track of it!
Do watermark images of your own artwork or products.
Do leave positive comments for other users pins.
Don't change their description or the link to which the image leads.
Don't claim a pin is yours if it belongs to someone else!
Don't leave pin descriptions blank, use descriptive key words to promote the pin.
Don't pin inappropriate images.

Interesting facts and figures about Pinterest
Pinterest is now showing the fastest growth rate of any social media site.
The most popular Pinterest topics are hobbies and crafts followed by cookery and fashion.
Click through rates and sales conversion is better on Pinterest than on either Twitter or Facebook.
Pinterest users tend to have a higher than average disposable income.
Approximately 58% of Pinterest users are females.
Product images that are pinned with a price are far more effective than product pins with no price tag.
Shoppers referred to a website via Pinterest, can spend 10% more than those referred by other sources.

Further information
Thanks to ActSmart, we found this interesting story on their website, www.actsmart.biz. Originally published by the Harvard Business Review.

For this story How Pinterest Puts People in Stores by David Sevitt and Alexandra Samuel, visit Harvard Business Review: http://hbr.org.

Date Posted: 23 October 2013

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