Although Pinterest describes it as a “work-in-progress,” its newly announced “Gifts” feed will enable displays of so-called “Product Pins” that provide details such as pricing, online sellers, and availability of pinned items.

The Gifts feed is actually accessible on the Pinterest “work-in-progress” section, which is where items available for sale are listed. Products may be filtered by price by clicking on buttons indicated with dollar signs representing various ranges: $: less than $50; $$: $25-$50; $$$: $50-$200; and $$$$: over $200.

The announcement was made on Pinterest’s Business blog, which is geared to advertisers, and not Pinterest’s main consumer blog.

In early 2013, Product Pins were introduced as one of a number of emerging pins on the service, such as movie and recipe pins. Product Pins have also been used for other Pinterest features, including consumer tracking and price change alerts.

For sellers to best utilize the new Gifts feed, the seller must update his website with specific metatags, which are detailed on the Pinterest Developers website. Then, when Pinterest users find these products on the social service, they are able to access that product’s price, inventory and the seller’s URL, which then allows the consumer to purchase the item.

Because Pinterest manages the Pins feed, retailers do not have the ability to add pins to this section and must implement the rich pin functionality on their websites so that pins appear. Merchants selling on larger marketplaces—eBay or Etsy, for example—are not affected by this as those integrations have already been completed by those platforms.

Pinterest advised TechCrunch.com that it opted to launch the Gifts section after finding success this past holiday season with a similar feed. The Gifts feed, and its Price Selector feature, is available on desktops. The feed is also available on mobile web, but without the Price Selector feature.

The Gifts section may become more consumer personalized in time, and in such a way that would be similar to the recently launched “Explore” section on Pinterest, which highlights pins based on the user’s interests. The Interests homepage combines articles, how-to photographs, and products; the Gifts feed is more products-focused and may end up being another section on Pinterest in which advertisers pay to have their pins shown to users.

Reference:

Perez, Sarah. “Pinterest Debuts A “Gifts Feed” Featuring Only Things You Can Buy;” TechCrunch; March 13, 2014.