It’s Pinterest Versus Amazon For The Future Of Online Fashion Sales

Pinterest and Amazon are on a collision course. On the face of it, a social media company facing off with an e-commerce juggernaut might seem odd. But Pinterest, which appears to be struggling to justify its $12.3 billion valuation, is anxious not to be viewed as a social media company. Toward that end, Pinterest is all in on visual search and venturing into AR territory. The company is counting on mastering e-commerce — which means going head-to-head with Amazon. Here’s how the competition is shaping up. Pinterest’s service is oriented toward collecting images rather than communicating with other users. Intuitively, there seems to be an easy path from curating a digital version of your ideal lifestyle to actually purchasing the accoutrements. A company spokesperson described Pinterest as “a visual discovery engine focused on helping people discover ideas” that is “not [meant for] socializing with friends.” Over the past couple of years, Pinterest has been steadily increasing its suite of “visual discovery tools.” After raising $150 million in June (at a flat share price), the company told Bloomberg that it would “use the funds to improve its computer vision and visual search technologies” as well as to continue to expand internationally. Read more at Inc.