From Inspiration to Purchase: How Pinterest Is Changing Retail

Well, welcome to season 10 of the award-winning Retail Tea Break podcast. My name is Melissa Moore, The Retail Advisor. I'm a retail educator, trainer and retail conference MC, and each week as your host, I'll be joined by industry experts, retailers, and brands to dispel the myths, share their knowledge, and give you an insight into the retail industry. There's over a hundred episodes now that you can listen back to on your favourite podcast platform.

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So in the meantime, grab that cup of tea, sit back and enjoy season 10 of the glorious Retail Tea Break podcast. This episode of the Retail Tea Break Podcast is brought to you by SCAYLE, the enterprise commerce platform, empowering B2C brands and retailers to easily create outstanding customer experiences with a seamless and flexible feature set that can be extended through APIs. Trusted by brands like Levi Strauss®️ , Harrods, Manchester United and Deichmann, SCAYLE enables businesses to accelerate innovation and drive real growth.

So for more information, visit SCAYLE.com today. Today I'm joined by an industry expert who brings over 20 years experience across media marketing and strategy, working across everything from radio to cinema and streaming, she spent much of her career helping brands connect with customers in more meaningful and commercially effective ways, including nearly a decade leading across lifestyle industries at Amazon ads. More recently, today's guest has been working closely with retail brands on creative, commercially impactful campaigns, offering a really valuable perspective on how brands show up and stand out in fast changing landscapes.

Caroline Orange-Northey UK and Ireland Managing Director at Pinterest, welcome to the Retail Tea Break podcast. Thank you for having me, Melissa. I am so excited to have this conversation. Pinterest has been popping up everywhere in conversations, lots on LinkedIn, so it's actually really lovely to hear it from you and maybe get a little insight as we go along the way.

So look in the age old fashion of the Retail Tea Break podcast, in the time that it takes to boil a kettle, which I am told bizarrely is about two minutes, tell us a little bit more about you and your background in the retail industry. Super. Well, I'll narrow it down to the retail industry because I think my 25 years in media would take more than two minutes. But if I pluck out the retail elements, I think it was, about 23 years ago when tobacco advertising was banned in the UK and myself and two friends, we, we saw an opportunity to create the biggest RMN in the country.

So we sublet 33,000 point of sale placements at kiosks within supermarkets and sold ad space to the likes of Visa and Wrigleys and Mars. It was, it was a wild time. I was dealing with tobacco companies where people smoked in the office, so quite a different environment to, to the one today and then flash forward maybe 10 years, and I was one of the early people into Amazon ads in Europe and, that business grew a lot and taught me a lot, taught me a lot about the rational reasons people shop, you know, price, selection, convenience, and I think that was great grounding for when I came to Pinterest, which was September 2024.

I came in as the Retail Director initially, and at Pinterest I've learned so much more about the joy of shopping and around inspiration, and the emotional reasons that people shop. And that was September 24 and about a just over a year later, I was promoted to MD. So it's been really thrilling time. What an amazing journey.

And as you say, I love the fact that you had the tenacity, I wanna say, in the politest possible way to go and sell loads of ad space. That's genius. So I can almost kind of hear and see your mentality that you've been bringing with you on your incredible kind of career journey, but look to bring us up to date, Pinterest today, like it's been around for years, obviously, and I mean that in a really positive way, but are people using it differently now than they would've been, say, like 10, 15 years ago?

Oh, for sure. And I think all of our online behaviour has changed in that time, but it's actually 10 years since we started monetizing Pinterest in the UK and, particularly in the last few years, we've focused on augmenting our capability lower funnel. So we're, we've always been about inspiration and consideration, but now we're truly full funnel because users told us when they see something inspiring and they wanna be able to purchase it, they want a smooth path to purchase.

So I think that's really taken us on that journey and it's a natural development and we very much anchor around discovery and visual search, but from a retailer's perspective, I tend to frame it as the three, what I call the three Ps. So performance, positivity and purchase intent. So performance, first up, we have Pinterest Performance Plus, which is our like AI enabled, data-driven suite of tools that helps advertisers to create really performant and effective advertising. An example would be George Home.

They ran a P Plus full-funnel campaign with us and drove 8x the ROAS. Positivity being the second P, I'm a huge believer in this. I think context really matters. We did a piece of research, or MAGNA, the Media Insights company did research released last year on the importance of the environment.

So a platform that a user feels is positive, a positive environment for them to be in has up to 94% higher purchase intent and up to 24% boost in sales. And I think that just proved what we always kind of intuitively understand, but it's good to have a data. That's incredible. Like what a stamp.

That's unbelievable. Yeah, I think it is really made me think about positivity as a, as a competitive advantage and a differentiator for, for retailers. And the final P, not to be forgotten is purchase intent. So I think there's something really, really different about Pinterest because 96% of searches are unbranded, but people can go quite quickly from inspiration to a purchase.

And Samsung UK, they leveraged, what we call our spotlight placement, which is our a hundred percent share of voice placement to reach people looking for their next big purchase and they drove a 17.2% lift in checkouts. So you are a discovery platform rather than an entertainment one. 'cause I'm mindful sometimes that people list off social media platforms and throw Pinterest in there, but it's not like that at all.

And I'm mindful that retailers that aren't utilising the platform in the right way, they really need to shift their mindset. What are you seeing when, I suppose retailers come to you first and foremost, or I suppose the positives of now that they're with you, what are they seeing? I think different retailers are at different points of understanding and, classification. But many platforms, many social media platforms are built for what we call the attention economy.

So they're not designed for the customer to take an action. They're designed literally to keep us scrolling and mindlessly consuming. And I think that takes a toll on all of us. And that's not just a consumer problem, it's a business problem because brands, they pay for attention, but that's not what they're getting in this oversaturated, overstimulated world.

And I think the differentiator with Pinterest is that people come with an intent. And I often talk about the fact that attention is usually fragmented, but intention is whole. And I think that's evidenced by the fact that the, the scroll speed on Pinterest is 150% slower. Wow.

I know. It's, it's wild, isn't it? So in terms of classifying as, as social media, I think we fit closer to like visual search and discovery. And if you take Gen Z, I think it's super unusual and intriguing that as a platform we're ageing down, so more than half of our users are Gen Z.

Two thirds of them, of our weekly Gen Z audience say Pinterest is one of the first places that they come to browse and to shop. So I think that's, that we're really differentiated from anything else. And you know what, I'm hearing that a lot, trying to tune into Gen Z as I am as a retail trainer, or even as just someone looking at those, that new generation of consumer. Mm-hmm.

They talk about it an awful lot. You know, they talk about even getting dressed in the morning, you know, that they've jumped onto Pinterest first thing, or it's what they're having for dinner or every aspect of their life. And I just think that's absolutely incredible that they, they feel like this is for them, you know, it is part of the absolute every single day. So no wonder the intent is already there when they're on the platform.

Harvard business did a review in 2024 that, for that audience, 10 minutes a day on the Pinterest board lowers mental anxiety. Wow. And yeah, that's really, that's really quite fascinating. That's really powerful.

And that's, it's great that I think they have, they've utilised or they've, they've got it. You know, they utilise this platform in such an incredible way. There's something else you said to me and I, this blew my mind, that people save your ads, they save, you know, commercial ads on Pinterest, you don't hear of that happening anywhere else. So again, it's, that intention is embedded in the action of popping onto the platform.

And of course, as you said, the scroll is slow. Yeah. So once I'm on, I'm there. I also think that, you know, the feedback that we get, that Pinterest just gets me, we're not guessing.

It's the, the secret sauce is it's built on our taste graph. And our taste graph is built on 80 billion user signals. So things like searcher saves, pins, clicks. And our taste graph grew by 40% in 2025, which just means we're more attuned to customers and, and their taste.

And we can therefore opt for up content including ads because ads are content that just feels much more relevant. And it's actually useful if you think about it. If you are on a, a journey from, you know, discovery to action to purchase being served something that is attuned to your taste and aesthetic is incredibly helpful. This taste graph absolutely fascinates me because this is stuff you know, it's data, and you've mentioned loads of that already today.

Retailers really need to understand this. This is not the AI stuff, this is not the stuff, the hopes and dreams. They really need to tune into this taste graph, don't they? Yeah.

I think the, the differences that AI is usually built on, on keywords and AI models don't understand taste. They don't understand what's unique about your taste and my taste, but Pinterest truly does. And in that respect, so the retailers, the brands utilising it, and I'm mindful lots of them aren't utilising the platform properly. How then do they go about starting to build and weave this into their every day?

Like they really do need to tune in a lot more too, as you say, what the people on your platform are already saying that they want Well, yes, but people don't always know what they want. So I think we're solving the retailer's challenge of, I know it when I'll see it. People prefer to search visually. The human brain processes a visual image 60,000 times faster than text.

69% of Gen Z say visual search results are more useful to them when they're shopping, and that's not niche. So visual search on Pinterest was up 44% in the, in the last year. So I think from a, from a retailer's perspective, I'd be thinking about how Pinterest plays a role in that shopper journey from that 96% of searches are unbranded and augment that with visual search. I think being able to take a customer quite quickly from inspiration to purchase is a unique, a unique role that we play on their media plans.

So I think with Pinterest you have to be quite intentional with the platform and build a long-term durable strategy with us. And one of the, like most basic things retailers can do is upload their catalogue. Because what that does is it gives breadth to the algorithm to continue to iterate. So you have the taste graph, then you'll have that understanding of taste and being able to surface the right thing to the right customer at the right time all works in synchrony.

That's brilliant advice actually. And I think it's a great place to start for those that are, are coming onto the platform almost as, as newer retailers or brands that at least they know, feeding, feeding into the, the system is gonna pay off dividends. 'Cause as we keep saying, people come onto Pinterest with intent, which is not the same anywhere else at the moment. But look, I wanna get to the good stuff 'cause I know you are so famous for your trends that I was like, we could have spent the whole conversation talking about them.

You're known for predicting them and them being incredibly accurate. So I suppose on a very open question here, what are you seeing right now? So much Melissa and, and our ability to see into the future is, is quite remarkable because we're a platform built on the future, which means we've got the, the earliest signals, and trends on Pinterest last twice as long as some other platforms. Wow.

Yeah, because it, it, it crops up earlier so people come onto Pinterest, as you mentioned, for kind of moments, big and small. You mentioned kind of meals and outfits, but it's also for really big life moments like weddings. What I used it for back in the day. Yeah, absolutely.

Wonderful. Well, we just launched our wedding trend report for 2026. There's been a lot of celebrity wedding news this week, so very, very pertinent. And some of the trends that are, that are really jumping out at me are things like quite diverse colour schemes, everything from like rooted romance to sort of ethereal shimmer.

So we see things like colour schemes like plum and fig really popping up, plum and fig aesthetics searches are at 1380%. And then at the other end, from the grounded to the, to the glowing, we're seeing this kind of shimmery, otherworldly opalite aesthetic. And searches for that are up 2,800 and no, 2710%. So that's really interesting.

We're also seeing couples opt for non-traditional venues. So not the ballroom of the past, but you know, something, everything from greenhouses to jazz clubs. No way. Yeah, it's amazing.

So jazz club searches up 1115%. So all of these, all of these trends speak to couples wanting to really showcase their personality in the, in this huge life moment. And that also takes, it takes the form of accessories. So we're seeing brides really opt for, you know, capes and headwear and, and jewellery.

And it's not just the brides, it's also the grooms. So I'd be very surprised if we didn't see Harry Styles in a brooch, but we're seeing groom brooch aesthetic up 435%. So the men are getting involved as well. And I think there's, you know, breaking the rule book, originality, personalization, Pinterest is the perfect place for that to exist and, and be, be planned and, and eventually come to life.

So I think that's really exciting. It is exciting because you know, it's literally as you are describing those and of course you have the words 'cause it's exactly as you said, what's being searched. I am seeing the Pinterest boards like flash in front of my eyes. Everything from the brooches there to those stunning colours and the way you describe it, you must find that you customers or your users are just as excited as I am listening to you there, are just thrilled to be able to like, make these moments of their dreams almost come to reality through the platform.

And of course, realistically then in the day-to-day. Yes. And actually that whole concept of our mission statement to give people the inspiration to create a life that they love, I think is really encapsulated. I dunno if you've seen our latest brand campaign, but it's very much built around that ethos that the best thing you can find online is a reason to go offline.

And at the centre of it, we just launched it and actually more assets come out today, across, out of home and cinema, but we launched a a 60 second video. It features archived footage of our employees from their family archives. So photos and videos, it's in, it's incredibly moving. And it captures the freedom of a more authentic pre-social media world.

And it's called how did they do it? How did they do it? How did they know what to like without being told, how did they know who to love? It's really moving.

I think it's very, very emotional and emotive, isn't it? And actually really timely. It feels not just a quintessentially Pinterest, but it feels like what the world's crying out for. And I think the Pinterest in-house creative studio just did an incredible job and it's really set the tone for the year.

That's gorgeous. What a gorgeous sentiment. But also linking back, as you say to these trends, everything you do is grounded in all this gorgeous data. And I suppose I frame it like that because this at the end of the day, is real people, you know, they're searching, they're hoping, they're dreaming.

So to bring these incredible trends back to the retailers, 'cause again, you, you have the people, you know what they want, you know what they're searching for. You've got the retailer on the other hand who's going, hang on. We have our values, our products. We know we need to sell this stuff.

How do the retailers almost come into this world? What should they be doing or leveraging to utilise these insights that you have? And we know they're accurate. So we have our not yet trending report at the beginning of the year.

We have our spring summer trends, wedding trend report. We'll have our autumn winter trends later. It's never too late to get involved with Pinterest trends because they last so much longer. It's not like chasing a hype cycle.

I, I think that longer runway means a retailer can, can feel more confident leveraging a trend and aligning with it on Pinterest. And obviously then that's gonna, hopefully lead to more sales. That's what we've seen historically. So I would, I would say, think about it as a superpower.

Think about it as a way to, a way to see into the future and, you know, the, the bravest retailers will be the ones that think about how can you take that to the nth degree in terms of product development. Bring it one step further. I love that idea. It's so true.

'cause again, I'm constantly thinking as you're talking today about the consumer on one side, who is, you know, there with intent. They're hoping, they're dreaming. That emotion is there. The retailer can play with all of this, like it's there for the taking, as you said, and then bring it back through their chain and design for it.

But I, I think it's an incredible world. I think, I think of Pinterest is this incredible world that you can do anything you dream of in it. And then meet and reach the right kind of people who are almost aligned with where you are and what you wanna do. As we said, whether it's the outfit for today or this dream wedding, it's everything.

It's one little world and we have it there in front of us. Yeah, I, I think a smart retailer would leverage Pinterest data and trends and insights to tune into that deeper understanding of a customer. Because if a customer is served the right thing at the right time, they feel seen and understood. They feel seen and understood, and then their propensity to take action increases.

And that's what retailers want at the end of the day. Absolutely. And I think to have you on that journey with them is an incredibly clever idea. It really is.

So look, a question I'm asking every guest this season, what are you most excited or most curious about when it comes to the future of retail? But actually I almost wanna switch that and, and say when it comes to the future of retail utilising, 'cause they should not be at this stage for all the reasons you've explained, but utilising Pinterest on that journey, It probably hasn't escaped many people's notice that search has been really, 'search' as a, as a part of the media plan has been really disrupted in the past year more so than in the previous 25.

And so I think that's an exciting opportunity to rethink search strategies. And also everyone's talking about AI, everyone's thinking about AI, but ensuring that AI doesn't get between you and your customer, you know, where search is generated, 60% of them don't lead to a site. So I think thinking about how to avoid that trap, and give customers a path to purchase that feels right for them. So I think just everything's being rethought.

Everything's up for grabs, but I see some retailers really thinking much bigger about their strategy on Pinterest. And so I'm really excited to be on that journey with them, not just myself, obviously myself and the team. So I think the rule books are out, out the window. We can reimagine it, but just stay true to the principles of know your customer and work backwards from their challenges.

Is this authenticity line, isn't it? That it's actually really obvious to me listening to you today that the retailers should be on that journey with you, but can bring themselves too much like, and I know we spoke about this before, much like consumers coming onto the platform are being their authentic self. Whatever they're searching for, whatever they're interested in, it's okay to be you. It's actually, it's a really lovely safe space to explore.

Yeah. And is brand safe as well. So that would kind of be my thought on flipping the model. So brand safety is not, is my brand safe from what it's adjacent to, but is my customer psychologically safe?

Are they in a positive environment? Is my advertising useful other than disruptive? And I think we've got some, a very unique and differentiated proposition, and it's a great time for retailers to think more about Pinterest. Absolutely.

And I think the points you've raised there are so important right now in the day and age that we're in. And again, things people aren't talking about, but it's, it's always there at the back of, of retailer's minds. So, look, one last question, and I've no idea where you're gonna go with this. 'cause again, you are constantly searching for the new and the incredible, what's coming up next for you and the team as we kind of midway through 2026 now?

Ooh. I think you said at the outset, Melissa, that Pinterest's having a bit of a moment right now. I, I think this 10 year celebration of monetizing the platform in the UK, I'm really keen to be out and about spending more time with, with retailers, with brands, celebrating our points of difference. I talked about our brand campaign and where we stand as a platform.

The best reason to go online is to find something to do offline. So I think it's continuing to think about building longer term, more durable strategies that yes, we're about the big moments, the home renovations and the weddings, but thinking about Pinterest, particularly with this younger audience and their utilisation being more weekly and daily, and how a brand can really tap into those moments, those insights, that understanding of taste and aesthetic to create, you know, surprise and delight experiences for customers.

So more innovation, longer term thinking, more strategy, and continuing to grow. It's so exciting and I love the fact there that this is the long term plan. It should be the strategies, as you say, for the brands out there, for the marketing teams out there. And it's definitely the place to come to and be, but also by the sounds of it, Gen Z that we've talked about, they're going to be with us a long time now.

So actually capturing their attention right now is gonna pay off dividends in the end anyway, surely. You know, it's it's a different audience and behaviours are different and, you know, expectations are different. So we must be doing something right. That's over half our audience.

We've got 619 million global monthly active users. They're doing 80 billion searches a month, and we've got 1.7 billion outbound clicks globally. So our strategy's working.

And I just, I, I wanna continue working with retailers in the UK to reimagine what that, what that looks like in the future. Best place to be. That data is mind blowing that you skipped through there, by the way, it 's unbelievable. But I think it's just such a, a wonderful place to explore and dream, as you say, it's so important.

It really is. Well, look, if you've enjoyed today's podcast episode, please do like and share it. We've had so many incredible insights and data moments from Caroline and I'll certainly collate all those together. Unbelievable sharing today.

So do share this podcast episode with your network. Tag me, Melissa Moore and the Retail Tea Break podcast. You can, of course, listen back to all previous episodes on your favourite podcast platform, or of course, over on YouTube. Caroline, where can people find you?

People can find me online or they can find me via the team on Pinterest. Fantastic, and obviously I'll pop all Pinterest details, if you are not already a fan and on the platform, we'll pop all those in the show notes as well. Caroline, it's been an absolute pleasure. I am mind blown by the data.

I am more in love with the platform than I ever have been, and I know this has been incredibly useful for so many of the retailers and brands listening, and hopefully a flurry of a lot more consumers as well to go and look at these, these wedding trends with no intention of getting married this year, but I can't wait to go and have a look too! Maybe a guest though, Melissa, there's plenty for guests. Looking forward to that. Yeah, definitely looking forward to the inspiration.

Caroline, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. Take care.

This episode of the Retail Tea Break podcast is brought to you by SCAYLE, the enterprise commerce platform, empowering B2C brands and retailers to easily create outstanding customer experiences with a seamless and flexible feature set that can be extended through APIs. Trusted by brands like Levi Strauss®️, Harrods, Manchester United and Deichmann, SCAYLE enables businesses to accelerate innovation and drive real growth. So for more information, visit SCAYLE.com today.