Case Study : Pinterest Shopping Feature

A discovery case study for Pinterest. My goal for this exercise was to discover new features that can be implemented in the platform.

1. About Pinterest

To start, I need to understand a bit about Pinterest mission, vision and position on the market. As stated on the company webpage, Pinterest is a visual discovery engine designed to inspire people to create a life they love.

Focused on ideas for people’s hobbies or their interests. Every idea is represented by a pin - an image saved in a board. Each pin can be linked to a website. This is a feature good for increasing traffic and sales.

Pinterest is also a community of creative people showing their designs, pictures, projects they work on, so now only a collection of images, videos etc. from different websites.

2. Competitor analysis

I have used SEM Rush app to analyze their competitor, and I have found out a full list of them, for example: Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit.

The one that appears to me as very similar to Pinterest is Instagram. The apps allows you to save your favorite posts in custom collections. However, these posts can only come from Instagram, not from any site like Pinterest.

3. Features

To discover the features, I have created an account and navigating the website.

Pins are the main feature of navigating through the website and selecting images that match your interests.

There are several actions that you can take on pins:

• Search for pins, whether it is from your saved pins, videos, people, boards or all

• Sort the boards (A to Z, Drag and Drop, Last saved to)

• Create a pin or a board

You can also share ideas with your friends and follow a board that interests you.

This is similar to Instagram follow user/page and share a favorite post in DM or story.

4. New features ideas

While the product is mature, I believe that there can be some enhancements that can be done. I propose a customizable online store using pins. Visual search enables users to search for similar items they are interested in. But what if you’re a handmade artist and you’d like to sell your designs you expose on Pinterest boards? A directly buy button should be available for products exhibited in pins.

5. Initial assumptions

• Handmade artists would like to sell their designed exhibited in pins

• Potential buyers can click the buy button and pay directly for the items shows in pins

• People who bought the items exhibited in pins can use the existing “Comments” under the pin to review it

6. Research

Since I’m not working at Pinterest, there’s no opportunity to get insights from other stakeholders and team members.

Here is a select set of questions I would use to assess if handmade artists and potential buyers would be interested in having this feature.

Note: The following answers are based on my own assumptions.

• Where do you shop for handmade items?

On artist website, Etsy, Amazon handmade, aftcra, ArtFire, Big Cartel, Bonanza, Shopify, Instagram & Facebook shop.

• As a handmade artist, how are you selling your items? Do you have any struggles with your existing selling methods?

Maintenance costs of the website, lack of combined advertising and quick shopping (for example, if a customer sees the item on Pinterest they will have to buy it by logging it to an external website).

• As a handmade artist, have you seen any increase in your sales based on your items being displayed on Pinterest?

Yes - if a customer likes the item, they click on the website available to buy it, a good part of the sales have increased based on the Pinterest board created for their handmade items.

I would continue asking if an option to buy the displayed item directly from Pinterest would be of use, as this is my proposed improvement and how they are feeling about it, how much they are willing to pay and what are their expectation for the proposed solution.

7. Proposed solution

I have searched for “handmade” items and took the following pin as example:

AS IS

To buy the item exhibited in the pin, you need to click the website mentioned there (“homeplistic.com”), to create an account and to do the online shopping.

TO BE

I have proposed to add a Buy this item button next to the item. This will enable the person interested in the item to quickly buy it.

The item will be added to the cart and upon cart creation, Pinterest can then recommend you similar items from the same handmade artist. This type of recommendation can be created by displaying either the most popular items bought from the same handmade artist, either randomly. In parallel, the checkout button will be displayed so the the customer will be able to finish their order. To pay for the product, the customer will need to have the option to save their credit card into their account.

Monetization

This solution will save time and money to handmade artists for their own shop. They can pay for better publicity of their boards on Pinterest.

8. Next steps explained

After designing the wireframes, I would like to validate them with the handmade artists and potential buyers - drive an experiment. I would propose two variants of webpages and conduct A/B testing to compare which variant drives more conversions.

After having a validated wireframe from my focus group, I would create a couple of realistic epics. Then, I'll outline product requirements that I'll validate with the UI/UX Designer - to check if the outlined wireframes are feasible - and Technical Architect (engineer lead) - to check the non-functional requirements and integrations that need to happen.

After development is complete, I would test the working prototype with the handmade artists and potential buyers, to gather their feedback.

The hypothesis to be tested would be: "By having a buy item possibility next to the exhibited handmade item, customers would quickly buy the item they are interested in without leaving Pinterest page and thus, handmade artists would increase their sales."

The experiment may contain a working prototype available for potential buyers and a survey to check if this option would make them use Pinterest for their shopping. The experiment will end with an open discussion with both handmade artists and potential buyers to better understand their feedback and if the solution proposed was helpful for them.

Notes:

This is a fictional design produced by myself.

The views and opinions expressed here do not reflect those of my employer or any other 3rd party I might associate with.