Pinterest has been on a journey to make its content more “shoppable” for several years, its VP of product marketing and operations Julie Towns told Retail Brew at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month. During a recent earnings call, the company even touted that the number of shoppable posts had jumped 50% in the second quarter.

But lately, the intersection of social media and e-commerce has gotten more crowded, with competitors such as TikTok going all in on turning its platform into a place to shop. Retail Brew asked Towns about the platform’s approach to e-commerce and how it plans to distinguish itself from rivals.

Does Pinterest see itself as an e-commerce platform?

We have 480 million monthly active users, and more than half of those tell us that they are here on Pinterest to shop. So I would say we are very much in the space of commerce. I think what makes Pinterest unique is that we want to first and foremost provide inspiration to pinners up front. So a lot of what we’re investing in now is making sure we have a diversified and large catalog of various products from all different retailers, and then secondly, making that process very seamless.

Keep reading here.—AV

From discovery to purchase, something has disrupted the shopping journey—or, shall we say, someone. LTK reports that trust in creators has surged more than 20%, redefining the consumer purchase journey.

And consumers are interacting with creators and their content now more than ever. While creator-guided shopping has become the new norm, creators aren’t just influencing purchase decisions—creators are now integral to a brand’s overall full-funnel marketing strategy.

LTK reports the latest consumer shopping data and creator trends from its national study in the Creator Journey™ 2024 report. Check out the full report to learn more about:

• how the rise of creator trust transforms the consumer journey
• the increased value of creator content
• LTK’s 360 creator marketing strategies

Get the full report.

Celebrity beauty brands are getting a lot more than their 15 seconds of fame, having surpassed $1 billion in sales for the first time, per NielsenIQ (NIQ). As of early November 2023, brands hit $1.091 billion in sales, up 57.8% YoY, surpassing the total beauty category’s overall growth of 11.1%.

NIQ tracks 48 celebrity beauty brands, including Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty, Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty, and Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs. Annual sales through November 4 were highly concentrated within two categories: cosmetics and nail grooming, and fragrance (which includes scents by Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish). Celeb brands in each of those categories made up 2.9% of the total category share.

• Meanwhile, celebrity lines across categories like bath and shower, deodorant, facial skincare, and haircare all accounted for less than 1% category share.

Keep reading here.—EC

Congratulations if you’ve made it this far into the month and stuck to your New Year’s resolutions. For those of you who haven’t, think of Feb. 1 as a second fresh start. And for those participating in Dry January, you only have three more days to let everyone know about it.

But enough words of wisdom and encouragement—here’s what’s going on in retail this week.

In product launches: Apple is unveiling its take on the VR headset on Friday: the Vision Pro, which comes with a $3,500 price tag. It’s one of Apple’s most anticipated new product launches in a decade. CEO Tim Cook even described it as “the most advanced consumer electronics device ever created.”

In earnings: Amazon’s gearing up to reveal its Q4 results Thursday, and by all indications, it was a good one. Amazon is coming off a strong Q3 that saw a 13% year over year bump in revenue. The tail end of Q3 overlapped with the start of the holiday shopping season, but the majority of holiday shopping took place in Q4.

Keep reading here.—KM

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