Pinterest broadens e-commerce capabilities with ‘Complete the Look’ tool

Pinterest has launched a new “Complete the Look” visual search tool that recommends relevant products in the home decor and fashion categories based on the context of scene. For example, if a user searches for a beach scene Pin, the platform will recommend products found in similar images such as hats, sandals and sunglasses.

Why we should care

Pinterest has been focusing on its e-commerce capabilities for some time now, and this new visual search tool is another step in that direction. The technology makes it possible for the platform to recommend fashion and home decor products based on the context and attributes of all objects within an image a user searches for or saves. As a result, brands will potentially gain more exposure on Pinterest as more of their Pins are surfaced via visual search.

“Complete the Look takes context like an outfit, body type, season, indoors vs. outdoors, various pieces of furniture, and the overall aesthetics of a room to power taste-based recommendations across visual search technology,” writes Eric Kim and Eileen Li who are part of Pinterest’s visual search team.

A Gfk “Path to Purchase” report from last November found that 78% of Pinterest users who engaged with home decor Pins made a purchase based on content shared by brands on the platform — that number increased to 83% of users who engaged with fashion Pins on a weekly basis.

More on the news

• In March, Pinterest hired Jeremy King to head up its engineering team. King brings deep e-commerce experience to the platform as the former CTO for Walmart and VP of engineering at eBay.
• On Monday, Pinterest introduced a new “Shopping” category to its Pinterest Marketing Partner program and announced it was dropping “Marketing” from the program name, now calling it simply “Pinterest Partners.”
• A June report from eMarketer said Pinterest outperforms other social platforms in terms of product discovery: with 47% of users turning to Pinterest to find new products, versus 15% of Facebook users and 11% of Instagram users.

About The Author

Amy Gesenhues

Amy Gesenhues is a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.