Dive Brief:

• Pinterest’s monthly active usership increased 25% to reach 250 million people, up from 200 million in September 2017. That's a 67% increase in two years, according to a company press release issued Monday.
• Over 50% — and 80% of total new signups — are international, the company said. Also, 40% of new signups are men which is important to the "female-centric" platform, reported Hootsuite. Pinterest now has over 175 billion Pins, which is up 75% since early 2017.
• Much of this is due to the fact that Pinterest is becoming an increasingly shoppable platform. Earlier this year, Pinterest announced that 87% of its users said they have purchased a product because of content they found on the platform. Those who buy something on Pinterest spend 29% more than people not using the platform.

Dive Insight:

Social media platforms like Pinterest are now critical to retailers' online sales and marketing strategies. Besides using the platforms in increasing numbers, consumers are now making purchases there and spending more. For example, data from social media analytics firm Shareablee found that shoppers engaging with retailers through social media are likely to spend 19% more than the average consumers.

This decade has seen a dramatic rise in the use of visual media of all kinds, most recently for visual search in e-commerce. Pinterest has paralleled and, in some ways, led that global trend. The company has over $1 billion in venture capital funding, raising $150 million last year as it expanded its visual search efforts, reported TechCrunch. The area of the platform where it presents products for sale on other retailer sites grew 115% in the last year. Recent initiatives by Pinterest to enhance its social e-commerce capabilities have been noted in light of a widely reported probable initial public offering expected next year.

The company has made increased efforts to partner with major retailers. In March, the social platform forged a partnership with The Home Depot to expand the social network's visual discovery feature, Shop the Look. Target has also partnered with Pinterest for visual search, and said it will add Pinterest Lens, along with insights from its catalog, into Target's registry, while adding the visual search technology to the Target mobile app. A visual search tool based on artificial intelligence increased average purchase value for the dresses and tops categories by 20% for Forever 21. Last fall, eBay rolled out two artificial intelligence-based image-recognition features — Find It On eBay and Image Search — allowing photo-driven search among all of eBay’s 1.1 billion listings from mobile devices.

Instagram is also moving aggressively into social e-commerce. Earlier this month, The Verge reported that the Facebook-owned platform is developing a standalone shopping app that will allow users to browse goods from retailers they follow and use the app to make a direct purchase. Instagram also is testing an in-app native payments feature to let users store their credit card information and make purchases directly inside the app instead of being pointed to another website, TechCrunch reported in early May. Instagram has expanded its shoppable posts feature to eight more countries so brands can now add e-commerce links within their Instagram posts to help drive transactions.