Apr 29, 2012

Pinterest Breaks Traffic Records and Whole Foods Leads the Way Into a Social Media Platform that the Retail Industry Can Be Happy AboutBy Barbara FarfanRetailIndustry.About.com

Social media photo-sharing webiste Pinterest announced in its blog that it broke a company record on April 23rd and 24th when it experienced its highest traffic days ever. Pinterest leaders failed to disclose a number for that traffic, but after seeing 103 million page views in the month of February, its safe to assume that the new daily traffic record was respectable. No doubt the record-breaking days were Pinterests’ highest traffic days “so far,” to be followed by many more record-breaking traffic highs, as Pinterest continues its meteoric growth in the social media-sphere.

The number of major U.S. retail industry companies using Pinterest is high, mostly because its easy for retail leaders to see that Pinterest is just like a big online catalog, with the added bonus of easy word-of-cybermouth repinned recommendations among friends. Finally retailers can be happy about their social media activity because it returns measurable ROI. Retailers are also happy to join Pinterest because unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest users aren’t repelled by retail presence in this social media space, but rather welcome and embrace the companies that are providing them with good artwork for their own pinboards.

Undoubtedly the thing that is most pinteresting to retailers about Pinterest is the infrastructure that inherently supports productive commerce. It’s so much easier to buy into the idea of social media when the click of a product photo leads pinterested pinners directly to a website sales page. When the ROI is clear, the allocation of resources aimed at establishing a Pinterest presence is clear as well.

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