Pinterest moves to support SMBs impacted by COVID-19

Across the global economy, it is clear the rapid and devastating impact COVID-19 is having on small businesses. With the government making it mandatory for non-essential businesses to close, a lot of small businesses have been forced to shutter their physical stores.

However, people are looking for creative solutions to help small businesses weather the storm. Now, Pinterest is aiding these efforts. 

Small business support and sustainability

Pinterest, a social visual discovery platform, has been taking in data from all the searches on its platform during this historical event. 

Pinterest reported trending searches over the last few weeks: 

• Searches for “support small business” have increased 351%
• Searches for "eco-friendly living" have increased 93%
• Searches for "zero waste products" have increased 108%
• Searches for "sustainable gifts" have increased  73%

Now, the platform is using these insights to launch a new collection of sustainable products on Pinterest Shop. 

Pinterest Shop launched in November of 2019, right before the holiday season. Its unique collections feature handpicked, curated, and shoppable products directly from the platform, with everything in the collection selected by Pinterest Shop's team. 

Last week, the Pinterest newsroom announced:

"Supporting creators, makers and small business has always been at our core, and in light of the COVID-19 crisis, this is more important now than ever...In honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, we’re launching a brand new collection of products from sustainable brands on the Pinterest Shop…The latest curated collection features hundreds of shoppable products (click Pin to go straight to checkout on the retailer’s site) from 21 small and medium-sized businesses. .."

This launch highlighted small eco-friendly companies from all over the country whose core mission is to create sustainable products.

Some of the small businesses that were featured included The Foggy Dogg, Made Trade, and No Tox Life, to name a few. Since its announcement, Pinterest has added 21 small and medium businesses to the collection. 

Black Friday in April?

Last week's tweet by Jean-Michel Lemieux, chief technology officer at Shopify, shows that consumers’ buying is not slowing down, even with all of the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 and its impact on the economy.

In fact, some sectors are seeing record levels of engagement. In turn, more e-commerce businesses are moving to digital platforms to keep up with the demand for sales. 

Pinterest isn't the only platform reaching out to support small businesses at this time. 

According to an article published by Nikki Gilliland, of Econsultancy, other social platforms are also releasing features to support small businesses during COVID-19. YouTube revealed its new video ad tool, Facebook released its business hub, and Instagram launched stickers for small businesses.

Before this epidemic occurred, Pinterest boasted over 320 million active users per month, proving to be a platform of choice for so many seeking inspiration and ideas. 

Now, Pinterest is encouraging SMB's to share their story — and possibly be added to the Pinterest Shop collection, emails, blogs and more. 

With more people willing to pivot and support smaller brands and businesses, this collection launch can open a door of opportunities.