Pinterest Taps VTEX to Help Brands Embrace Social Commerce

Pinterest has launched a partnership with composable commerce platform VTEX.

The new collaboration is designed to help consumer brands expand their social commerce footprint and connect with more customers, the two companies said last week.

According to a news release, VTEX’s platform lets its 2,600 global customers reach and engage on Pinterest, where customers can integrate their product catalogs, create Pins, and run performant shopping campaigns.

“With over half a billion monthly active users, Pinterest is bringing more relevant products that our users love onto its platform,” said Matt Hogle, Pinterest’s vice president of global sales organization.

“Our partnership with VTEX is another way for large brands and regional customers to connect with our users who are seeking inspiration and shopping in a positive and inspiring place online,” he continued.

“At VTEX, we empower large global enterprise brands to maintain agility and deliver seamless shopping experiences from anywhere,” added Santiago Naranjo, chief revenue officer at VTEX. “With our latest social commerce partnership, VTEX plays a pivotal role in translating the inspiration discovered on Pinterest’s platform into authentic consumer connections for many of the world’s most popular brands powering their commerce experience.”

The companies noted VTEX customers including Whirlpool, Blaisten, and Easy are among the early testers of the collaboration.

In late April, Pinterest released quarterly earnings showing a 23% increase in revenue, a trend the company attributed to, in part, its investment in making the platform more shoppable.

“We’ve made it easier and more seamless to shop content on Pinterest, a top priority for our users, and we’re seeing users take advantage of the improved actionability, as outbound clicks to advertisers accelerated from last quarter, more than doubling year over year yet again,” CEO Bill Ready told analysts during an earnings call.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has found that many consumers are mixing social media and shopping, even if relatively few are actually making purchases via social platforms.

The 2023 PYMNTS Intelligence report “Tracking the Digital Payments Takeover: Monetizing Social Media” found that 43% of consumers browse social media to find goods and services, while just 14% ultimately purchased those goods and services via social media.

The same report found that Generation Z consumers were more likely to use Instagram and TikTok to seek products than other generations — and use those channels before trying Google. And 68% of Gen Z consumers searched for products using social media, and 22% ultimately completed a purchase.

As PYMNTS wrote last week, the news that Facebook has seen a surge in younger users could mean a turning of the tide for social commerce.