Study: 70 Percent Of Pinterest Users Are There For Shopping Inspiration

This should come as no surprise to anyone that’s done more than just take a quick glance at Pinterest: Consumers rely heavily on the site when they’re looking for product- and shopping-related inspiration. It’s also, as I’ll explain below, good news for Pinterest’s future business plans.

A recent BizRate Insights study compared why online shoppers in the US and Canada use Pinterest and Facebook. Both sites scored highly as a source of entertainment, but Pinterest users are there for commerce-related reasons more so than Facebook users.

Seventy percent of Pinterest users say they use the site to get shopping inspiration, and 43 percent say they use it to associate with brands/retailers. Only 17 percent of Facebook users look for buying inspiration on Facebook, and only 24 percent say they use Facebook to connect with companies they like.

Not shown above, but also revealed in the study is this stat: 55 percent of Facebook users say they’ve “liked” a retailer or brand, while only 26 percent of Pinterest users say they follow a retailer or brand on Pinterest. That may seem contradictory, but it might be explained simply by the fact that many more brands are active on Facebook.

Regardless, the fact that so few Facebook users are active there for commerce-related reasons speaks to some of the trouble that Facebook has had convincing brands to advertise. On the flip side, the study suggests that Pinterest should have an easier time monetizing in the future because many users are already in a commerce-based frame of mind when they’re using the site.