Pinterest, the most popular style-browsing app on both iOS and Android—and currently, the 11th most popular free app on the iOS App Store—announced that it will soon introduce a "buy" button to its mobile apps, thus converting the service from a drool-producer to possibly the American app universe's biggest fashion and décor shopping mall.
iOS pinners will get the first crack at the "buy it" button "in a few weeks," according to an announcement made by Pinterest engineering manager Chao Wang, and it will appear on "millions" of listings, including major clothing retailers like Macy's and Nordstrom and smaller brands that employ either Demandware or Shopify as an e-commerce solution.
The initiative was launched with an information page that states Pinterest will not take a cut of any product sales conducted through the app. That comes as a surprise, since Pinterest shoppers will have to select options such as size, color, and style within the app before checking out, as opposed to being dumped into a seller's own portal.
Shoppers can elect to enter credit card information manually or pay through Apple Pay; either way, Pinterest insists it will in no way store users' credit card information. The announcement's focus on tokenized transactions may point to why Android users will have to wait longer for similar functionality. Wang said Android users, along with desktop pinners, will have to wait "for future releases," and he didn't mention whether Android Pay would be incorporated into that platform's payment system. Once all platforms are buy-enabled, Pinterest will have an estimated 42 million-plus shoppers at its disposal.
Rumors about Pinterest's impending buy button began with a Re/code report in February, and they followed Facebook's 2014 announcement of a buy button being added to its app in the near future. The Facebook buy button information page still describes the initiative as a "limited test."
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