For months, Pinterest has been rumored to be readying a "Buy" button that could provide the blockbuster advertising and e-commerce business the six-year-old online scrapbooking service has long been expected to unveil.
Today, a top Pinterest executive revealed more about the possible plans for the first time. Tim Kendall, Pinterest's head of partner products, outlined a couple of intriguing examples at MIT Technology Review magazine's EmTech Digital conference.
Update: On June 2, Pinterest announced Buyable Pins would launch later this month in partnership with Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom and other retailers.
The buy button would allow Pinterest users to order products they discover on the service without having to click over to the company’s website or app. Currently commercial partners can post "Promoted Pins" as a sort of advertisement. Originally they provided only a photo and a link as the content. Then Pinterest added attributes partners could pass on--provider name, title, description and, more recently price and inventory availability.
Kendall said the key is a new "attribute" announced as part of Pinterest opening up a developer platform last month that allows partners to build entire "experiences" within Pinterest. One "canonical" example that Kendall described: After a discovering a recipe on Pinterest, you could click a button to order the ingredients from Fresh Direct and have them delivered 45 minutes later. Likewise, you could add items with a click to your Amazon wish list with a click.
Kendall hastened to add that this capability is not yet built and for now remains "hypothetical." However, his description was the most specific the company has yet made, and it's clear that Pinterest aims to provide something like this to partners.
