Let me show you how to buy from a Pinterest shop. The social media platform itself does not have a shop on its website, rather it allows the seller to add a link to its website to enable the buyer to click from the Pinterest pin to the website for payment processes. The merchants display information about the products they market, and each pin you click brings out the “more to explore” option, which shows you similar products to the one you wish to purchase. Since there’s no “buy button” option on Pinterest and everything you’re doing has to deal with a 3rd party merchant, let’s look at the things you need to check before you purchase any item from a merchant.
Guidelines to check before making a purchase
The following guidelines will help you to make a purchase from a reputable merchant to avoid falling into the hands of scammers.
- The merchant must have a high-quality website to show that you can trust the seller.
- Their Pinterest account must have the “Verified Merchant” tag before you can make a purchase through them. The verified tag means that Pinterest approves them as an authentic and reputable company.
- Check to see if the merchant has a clear return policy that states whether the merchant accepts returns and the process and time expectations for returns.
How to buy from a Pinterest shop
Now that you have read the guidelines before making a purchase through Pinterest, let’s dive into the processes involved in buying a product on Pinterest.
- The first thing you need to do once you log in to Pinterest is to click on the search icon and shop for your product pins.
- Let’s assume you’re searching for “shoes”, just search the general term “shoe” and not a particular designer shoe you want. If you choose to search directly for the item, then click on the account that posted it to make sure it’s verified before making a purchase.
- Then click on the filter icon by the side, select profiles, and click Apply. This will give you a list of merchants, and you can easily spot the verified ones. You can check out my post on how to search for people on Pinterest.
- Click on any of the verified accounts and scroll through their products.
- Click on any of the pins and click on the link to their website to make a purchase.
Note: Any purchase you make is between you and the merchant and not Pinterest. Pinterest has stated that they won’t be held accountable for anything if an issue comes up. All you can do is to report the merchant account to Pinterest for actions but your money won’t be refunded by Pinterest.
