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Comment by BrianEatWorld | Hacker News Reader

I thought the problem with Pinterest was that "intent to buy" was actually really low compared to other traffic sources.

I know its an old article, but has anything come out contradicting it? http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2012/07/13/new-data-show...

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This is just one data point, but my mom and I run a cooking blog that makes a decent amount of money from the Amazon affiliate program, and people from Pinterest definitely come to her site with an intent to buy. Given how much money we making from Pinterest visitors, it doesn't seem crazy to think that they could figure out a way to monetize their user base.

My girlfriends makeup site embraced pinterest in early 2012 which resulted in gradual traffic growth from females who have been strong contributors and buyers.

I feel its more saturated now but still a great platform to leverage.

At this point the data points coming out are almost conjecture. Here's something more recent that says almost the opposite: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222740

I know they're also making a new push specifically for brands to be able to manage content and traffic more easily: http://business.pinterest.com/

Given the new focus on businesses and the scale at which Pinterest already operates, the $2.5B isn't so hard to believe.

I imagine it varies a lot by category/board. Cat boards (which is what I use it for) = no intent to buy. Cooking implements = high intent to buy. Women browsing $20k dresses, somewhere in between.

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