On April 18, 2023, Pinterest removed the Shop Tab from Pinterest profiles, which triggered a huge uproar in the marketing community. But once the dust settled, we realized it’s actually not that bad.
In this podcast, Kate talks about what the Shop Tab was, what shopping on Pinterest looks like now, and shares new strategies for approaching this change as a business owner.
We also have a YouTube video about this change that’s super informative!
WHAT IS THE SHOP TAB?
The Shop Tab is something that showed up on your Pinterest profile when you connected your catalog or became a Verified Merchant. This allowed people who came to your profile to see a little tab called “Shop”.
On most Pinterest profiles, it says “Created and Saved”. But if you had connected your catalog, it would say “Shop”. If they clicked on it, Pinterest users would see different product categories of all the products that you sold.
While this option is now gone, something important to remember is that most Pinterest users don’t generally go to profiles. They’re searching for things that help them fulfill their goals, plan for the future, or fix or solve a problem they’re having. They’re not necessarily looking for YOU.
Your profile’s main purpose is to help Pinterest know who you are, what your business is about, and a way to showcase your products on the broader platform to those people who are doing the unbranded searches.
In fact, Pinterest analyzed the user’s behavior and realized more people found products through searches, instead of going to a particular Pinterest profile or Shop Tab.
what does this mean?
- Does this mean being a Verified Merchant isn’t available?
- Can I still connect my product catalog?
- Is my product catalog still connected if I already did it?
The gist of the change is this – the Shop Tab has been removed from your profile. You should still connect your catalog. If the Verified Merchant program is a good fit for your business, we believe you should still apply.
The Shop Tab is gone, but product catalogs are not. Shopping on Pinterest for the user won’t look a lot different.
Your products will still be refreshed every 24 hours if your catalog is connected – which essentially means that Pinterest will search your products and note if a price has changed or if an item is no longer available.
RELATED: How to create a shop and upload your products on Pinterest
HOW DO PINNERS FIND PRODUCTS NOW?
Through searching on the platform!
Say the Pinner is looking for a vegan night cream that’s anti-aging. These are the words they might type into the search bar. If your product is tagged correctly or using appropriate keywords, it will come up in relevant searches.
When a Pinner puts in this search, they will be shown a lot of content. They can also choose between searching Pinterest profiles or shops, which means they may head towards the shop because they’re looking for a product.
This is why you need your product catalog connected!
You can also tag your products on your standard, static Pins. As the business owner, you just click the little button that says “Tag Products”, and you can tag up to about 8 products on that single Pin.
When the Pinterest user finds your Pin and clicks on your image, the products you’ve tagged will show up.
RELATED: Why do people use Pinterest? (podcast/blog post)
HOW TO MARKET YOUR PRODUCTS ON PINTEREST
Has shopping on Pinterest changed a lot for business owners?
To start off, just keep on keeping on. While this is a change, we don’t feel like it’s the end of the world.
Moving forward, if you aren’t already, start pinning some products from your shop. And make sure you’re tagging your products on your standard Pins.
And watch the data! Watch your buyer’s behavior and see where people are buying from. This will help you make data-driven decisions moving forward.
Another thing to note, for those who have Etsy or TPT, these are third-party sites and you can’t connect your catalog anyway. In order to connect your catalog, you need to have your own website and domain that’s self hosted.
RELATED: Your TpT Store and Pinterest (podcast/blog post)
We’d love to hear from you! What are you seeing on your Pinterest profile? Have you noticed any other significant changes around how you market your products on Pinterset?
If you’d like to share your thoughts, leave a comment on this blog post or send us a DM on Instagram.
Additional Resources Covered in Podcast:
Simple Pin Products and Resources:
Hi there! Thank you for your questions. You can definitely pin your Etsy products even though that is not your claimed website. Whether you’re including the Etsy URL in your pin image text overlay and/or actually linking the product directly to your Etsy store – both options will work!