Multichannel apparel retailer J. Crew Group Inc. has debuted its September catalog on Pinterest. This marks the first time the retailer has done so. The pins feature images, not pages, from the catalog on the social network.

And, while the items aren’t available for purchase until tomorrow, the retailer lists its personal stylist’s e-mail and phone number so shoppers can pre-order items. J. Crew declines to give further details about the program.

Pinterest allows consumers to “pin” and share favorite products and images from around the web. They add their pins to boards, which are organizational tools used to group pins together around a particular theme—for example “My Style.” Consumers can also repin images that others have pinned, and endorse others’ pins by clicking a Like button.

Since J. Crew posted its catalog on the social network, nearly 57,000 consumers have followed the retailer’s “Style Guide Sneak Peek” board. That means that the board’s pins show up in those shoppers’ home feeds.

J. Crew is No. 168 in Internet Retailer’s 2013 Social Media 300, which ranks retailers by the percentage of traffic to their web sites from social networks. The retailer attracts 0.84% of its site traffic from Pinterest, according to the guide.

J. Crew’s first-time use of Pinterest to highlight its new fashions comes in the wake of the social network beefing up its e-commerce capabilities. For instance, earlier this month it began rolling out price alerts, in which it automatically e-mails shoppers when a retailer drops the price of an item that she has “pinned.”

Pinterest—which launched in 2010—accounted for 24.96% of site traffic to retailers’ sites from social networks in the first quarter of 2013, up from 17.51% in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to a recent report from Monetate Inc.

J. Crew is No. 56 in the Internet Retailer 2013 Top 500 Guide.

Favorite