Social Media Today reports that Pinterest is pivoting toward e-commerce. It's adding more updates designed to position itself as a platform for connecting people with things - as opposed to people with people - ahead of its imminent IPO.

Providing more ways to shop is the focus as Pinterest encourages users to view it, not as a social media platform, but a "place for inspiration." New showcase tools will look at user behaviour and produce "Picked for You" products from retailers like Target, Birdies Slippers, Joybird, The Tie Bar, and Parachute.

As explained by Pinterest:


If you're a long-time Pinterest user you'll no doubt have noticed a shift to e-commerce - the platform has largely abandoned its social media roots. New tools like Pinterest Lens and 'Shop the Look' are reinforcing that strategy, and it's working.



Pinterest can boast - and it does boast - about a recent Neustar study which illustrated that retail brands saw a 2x higher return on spend via Pinterest than from other platforms, and a 1.3x higher return than from traditional search.



These are attention-grabbing stats for marketers, but there's more. Previous data flagged Pinterest as superior at driving purchase intent. It found that a whopping 93% of users visit Pinterest when planning for a purchase.

What do you guys think?

As Pinterest approaches 300 million active users, can marketers afford not to explore its retail potential? And could be a contender to Instagram's shopping feed?