In late March, apparel and home goods retailer Anthropologie announced its digital-only catalog on Pinterest.
As the coronavirus pandemic limited shoppers’ ability to visit in-store locations, the partnership with Pinterest allowed Anthropologie to “translate the ordinarily physical experience into an interactive virtual experience,” says executive director of digital at Anthropologie, Barbra Sainsurin.
“Pinterest is incredibly influential in the home, design and decor space, so it felt like the perfect alignment to launch our digital catalog with them,” she says.
The catalog, dubbed “AnthroLiving,” includes a detailed look at the retail chain’s spring home collection, including home decor and furniture. Interested shoppers can click on an image and be redirected to Anthropologie’s website to make a purchase.
Anthropologie’s “AnthroLiving” catalog includes curated products from the retail chain’s Spring home goods collection.
While Pinterest does allow shoppers to purchase directly from the social media site, Anthropologie chooses to redirect customers who click on a product to its website. This enables Anthropologie to have more control over the consumer’s shopping experience and own the customer data, Sainsurin says. This is done so that the retailer can better understand and service the shopper, she says.
Currently, Anthropologie only showcases its housewares products in the digital catalog on Pinterest, but plans to expand to apparel items soon, Sainsurin says.
Anthropologie’s home goods department has grown in the double digits so far this year, Sainsurin says. With a longer buying cycle than other categories, Sainsurin says that Pinterest is a great social channel for the items to live on and the best department to launch on Pinterest with. Longer buying cycles mean that consumers take more time to come to a purchase decision, and that items don’t fall out of fashion as quickly, which means they can stay on Pinterest and still generate interest longer than other categories.
Home goods was a popular category for shoppers last year, with the Top 1000 housewares and home furnishings retailers growing 45.8% in 2020. Home improvement retailers grew 54.3%.
Ads on other social media sites can become stale or dated, says Alex Prudencio Irizarry, the director of product at performance digital marketing agency Adlucent. However, Pinterest allows for a livable board that users can revisit or discover at any moment. This allows for ads to have longevity and makes Pinterest more popular with ecommerce advertisers, Prudencio Irizarry says.
“It’s a collection; it’s curated,” Prudencio Irizarry says. “Pinterest has a really long run in terms of creative vs. other platforms.”
So far, the responses to the AnthroLiving catalog have been “overwhelmingly positive” and have been outperforming Pinterest benchmarks, Sainsurin says without revealing more.
Pinterest’s user base is also growing, according to the Digital 2021 Global Overview Report by We Are Social and Hootesuite. Data shows Pinterest had 442 million global active users in January 2021, a 37.3% increase from 322 million in January 2020.
Prudencio Irizarry believes that this number will continue to grow as more users turn to Pinterest in an effort to live vicariously during the coronavirus pandemic.
“This might be Pinterest’s year because with the pandemic, so many people were stuck and just kind of dreaming about what they might want to do when they get out,” Prudencio Irizarry says. “Since Pinterest is so planning-intensive, it is a place that people go to.”
Anthropologie is part of Urban Outfitters, No. 33 in the 2021 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000.