Target Corp. is testing a Pinterest-powered shoppable online catalog called the “Target Awesome Shop.” It is promoting the site via Target’s social and online channels, including Target’s desktop and mobile web sites.
The site, located at AwesomeShop.Target.com, features a mix of the best-reviewed and most-pinned items on Target.com. For example, the site today features 1,334 products, such as the “top-pinned” eos lip balm sticks. When a shopper clicks on an item a pop-up appears showing the consumer the number of times the product has been reviewed, how many times the item has been pinned, the item’s price range, a Pin It button and a View Details button that, when clicked, takes the shopper to the item’s Target.com product page.
“This curated crop of trending items is a shoppable visual catalog that inspires gift ideas and helps you discover cool stuff that everyone’s currently loving!” Target writes in A Bullseye View, Target’s online magazine. “Whether it’s a fabulous faux fur rug or a top toy, each item featured in the Target Awesome Shop is one of the most-pinned Target.com products on Pinterest in the last few days. Best part? Target Awesome Shop only includes products that have at least a four-star guest review (or no reviews so far) so you’re getting a double stamp of approval.”
Target’s Rapid Accelerated Development group, an in-house development team focused on building, deploying and testing new initiatives, built the site “in a matter of weeks,” says a Target spokesman.
Pinterest is the social network where consumers can pin images and pictures of products they like from around the web. They often accompany those pins with a brief description or caption that appears below the image. Consumers add their pins to boards, which are organizational tools used to group pins together around a particular theme—for example, “Santa’s Sweets & Treats.”
The retailer, No. 169 in Internet Retailer’s 2013 Social Media 300, which ranks the leaders in social commerce by the percentage of web site traffic they receive directly from social networks, has grown increasingly active on Pinterest over the past year. It has more than 132,000 followers on Pinterest and last month it became one of the first retailers to use Pinterest’s API, or application programming interface, to provide ready access to Pinterest data, such as the number of consumers pinning a particular product.
The Target Awesome Shop is the latest in a series of recent moves by retailers to leverage Pinterest and Pinterest-like features to make their sites more engaging. For instance, Toys ‘R’ Us Inc. last month launched a redesigned web site that lets shoppers place items in Pinterest-like boards, while also viewing trending products on the site.
Target is No. 18 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.