Pinterest To Compete With Social Media Moguls Using New Buy Button

In an effort to ramp up its revenue, social scrapbooking site Pinterest is introducing a new buyable pin. On Tuesday, the company

that certain images on the site will include a price tag image which indicates that a user can buy that product directly through Pinterest.

Unlike other social networking sites where a move toward monetization took away from the user experience and caused complaints, Pinterest's decision to add buyable pins has been applauded by the site's members who have been asking for a way to buy items they see on the site. This aspect should be especially enticing for advertisers, who now have a way to reach customers who are already looking for a way to buy their products.

Pinterest itself won't actually make any money on the buy button; Stripe, Braintree and Shopify will be responsible for the payments made through the pins and Pinterest isn't taking a cut of the sale. Instead, the company is planning to offer merchants the opportunity to make their buyable pins into "promoted pins" which will show up for users who meet certain criteria that makes them more likely to buy an item.

Pinterest isn't the only social media firm looking to add e-commerce to its revenue stream. Instagram also announced its own plans to add purchase links to photos this week and Facebook has been working to add e-commerce to its platform for about a year. However, as Pinterest is already set up as a virtual wish-list for users, e-commerce appears to be a natural next step.