Page 24 - AdNews magazine Jul-Aug 2021

Agenda
Below: Laura Mercier AR try-on in Facebook and Instagram Shops.
of users engaging with shopping surfaces on the app grew more than 200% during the past year.
Pinterest head of shopping product Dan Lurie says the move was a natural progression for the platform which has always been a source of inspiration for customers looking to buy a product. He says the new features make Pinterest a lot like a traditional marketplace.
“On the merchant side of the house, we’ve rolled out the verified merchant program internationally which hand vets merchants to ensure they’re going to provide a good experience for our shoppers,” he says.
“We want to start from a place of trust so we made sure they need criteria for things such as a clear shipping policy, clear return policy and that they’re selling what they actually say they’re selling.”
Once through the process, Pinterest helps brands set up a “storefront”. Brands can upload their “catalogue” of products to be displayed throughout all of Pinterest’s various shopping surfaces.
The features for brands are completely free to use and purchasing doesn’t happen within Pinterest. It instead directs shoppers back to the brand’s own channel with Pinterest not taking a cut.
“Our users have a very upper funnel inspiration mindset,” says Lurie. “Our goal has been to connect them to the products to help bring that inspiration to life. We’ve started to make it easier to compare and evaluate those products [to] make sure you’re finding the one that’s right for you. But ultimately then we send that traffic to our merchant partners and the checkout happens on a retailer’s page.”
If a brand wishes to increase its reach on the platform, this then becomes a paid feature which Pinterest offers through setting up a campaign.
Traditional meets technology
Brands are finding use cases for technology such as AI and AR in the shopping experiences they deliver on their own channels.
Oracle’s Lavelle uses Kmart as an example of a brand using AR well through its online store. The retailer has been using the technology to place products in situ so shoppers can view it within the home.
When it comes to using different technology in an ecommerce strategy, Lavelle says it is all about context. Conversational commerce has quickly found its place in the CX world with chatbots becoming introduced as a means to scale customer service.
While Lavelle believes voice channels are set to take off, Davias believes the technology is best left for basic macro tasks for the moment. “I think all these technologies, they all come in and everyone jumps
on them because it’s the new hot thing,” says Davias.
“Everyone wants to have the first Instagram Shop and to have the first
shopping experience on an Alexa device. Then all the brands try it, and realise that’s not actually the new revenue stream they hoped for.”
He says it will be a few years before these new technologies mature and become embedded in consumers’ lives enough to see any financial benefit to using them.
Even as the world goes back to some shred of normalcy, digital pur- chasing behaviours are here to stay. This leaves brands with an offline presence needing to find ways to connect it with their online presence in order to deliver the personalised experience customers now expect.
While the jury is out on which brands have done this well, most point to the tech giants and the banking and financial services industry as leaders in the space.
Things such as loyalty programs that offer a meaningful value exchange and click-and-collect services are some ways brands are making a connection. The resurgence of QR codes also continues to present new and creative opportunities to connect the online and offline worlds.
“Marketers should investigate how they can use these and other meth- ods to connect their offline experiences such as in-store POS (point-of- sale) materials to their main digital channel,” says Sitecore’s Johnson.
“Always be looking for ways to draw the customer back to your site at key points in their journey.”
they want, we want to make it easy for them to find,” she says.
“What Shops has helped do is for them to realise it’s too reduc- tive to think about online purely as a place for people who already know what they want.”
Similarly, Pinterest has expanded its shopping features and made more of them available in different markets. It recently brought some of the features Down Under, allowing users to shop from Pins, on boards, from search, and through the Lens camera search. Users will also be able to get inspiration from Shopping Spotlights which show- case expert recommendations and trends from fashion and home influ- encers and publishers.
The expansion comes as Pinterest reports that the number
“Today, empathy
is an underutilised differentiator.” Adobe VP marketing APAC Duncan Egan
www.adnews.com.au | July/August2021 24