What competitive advantage does Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) have over other social media that might make its "Buy" button more successful?
Amazon is the big gun in e-commerce that has disrupted traditional retailing. But now, it seems, Amazon is in for some disruptive competition itself. With global e-commerce sales expected to reach almost $2 trillion a year, Google and social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram want to get in on the action. Several social media sites are experimenting with "Buy" buttons on their sites that let consumers purchase directly through the social medium. Google is experimenting with "Buy" buttons on search results to counter the almost 40 percent of consumers who now start their shopping searches on Amazon instead of search engines like Google. The biggest game changer, however, might be Pinterest. Pinterest started in 1999 as asharable bulletin board where participants "pin" pictures of things they like. It is now a multibillion-dollar company with 70 million monthly visitors who have saved more than 50 billion objects on a billion Pinterest bulletin boards. Lots of people would like to be able to buy some of those pinned objects, so Pinterest has added a "Buy" button to its mobile app. Users had already been able to click through to a marketer's website, but now they can purchase any of more than 2 million products from retailers such as Macy's, Bloomingdales, and Nordstrom directly through Pinterest without leaving the site. Payments are processed through Pinterest's partners Stripe, Brainstorm, or Apply Pay, but the seller provides the order fulfillment. In the future, Pinterest users may see an appetizing recipe, click the "Buy" button to order the ingredients from Fresh Direct, and have them delivered to their homes in less than an hour.