Pinterest and Shopify

With the latest e-commerce movements on Pinterest, we figured we would dive into the deep end and open up our own Shopify store to sell digital products. This not only allows us to understand the nitty-gritty details and frustrations of owning and managing a shop, but to share more about the profitability of selling digital products on Pinterest.

In episode 295, I talked about Pinterest’s new push to become America’s shopping mall. When this was announced in June, it also coincided with our first live e-commerce workshop.

After the workshop, I instantly messaged our e-commerce specialist and told her I wanted to open up a shop. Purely for experimenting and to see what digital products in the B2B (business to business) space could do.

Facebook and Instagram won’t allow you to sell digital products on their shop, but Pinterest will! This is great for online workshops, digital meal plans, e-books, and more.

How to start selling on pinterest

We had a few hurdles standing in our way. Which now that we’ve worked through more of the process, was probably a good thing. It helped us to slow down and figure out the best way to make this work for our business.

First hurdle – we were self-hosting our products. Building our own listings and landing pages, and running through Thrivecart checkouts. And we didn’t have enough to get the shop tab to show up on our Pinterest profile (you need 9 products).

Still, I told the team to run with it! We figured we’d just see what we could do to at least get approval of a manual catalog, with the hopes of building up to more than 9 products.

Fast forward to July and I’m at a mastermind in Phoenix. We were all processing our businesses and Monica Froese, who has been on this podcast before, shared with me that she was loving having a Shopify store. It was really fun for her to sell her products in this way.

We’ve been thinking so much about how we’re serving our customers and clients in the best way, so it was really nice to hear from someone who’s doing something a little different than us.

Our conversation inspired me big time.

Just about the same time our catalog was denied by Pinterest.

Perfect timing… maybe.

So I jumped on the bandwagon, and began to set up the steps to get a formal shop.

setting up a shopify store

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First, we’re going to host via Shopify. They’re super user-friendly, allow us to market digital products, and will get us on the path to being part of the Verified Merchant Program. Pinterest and Shopify are directly integrated, which makes it that much easier.

Second, we’re going to hire someone who specializes in tech to set this up. I’m a big believer in getting straight to the point and hiring out using people’s strengths. In the beginning, sometimes we just have to bootstrap and figure things out. But if you have some leeway in your budget, this is a great way to use YOUR gifts while someone else is using theirs.

We’re using Melissa at Your Tech BFF for this set up and it’s a one day, VIP intensive. Get in and get out. And all done.

Third, we will begin to fill the shop with our past workshops, small curriculum pieces, pin design templates, and more. We have an extraordinary amount of curriculum in the background, including video recordings and PDFs, that we can repurpose and make available for purchase.

why we’re pivoting our process

What I have observed recently is that people like to take learning in bite-sized pieces. Whether that is attention span or the rise of TikTok, it seems that the way people are learning is more single-topic focused. No more courses gathering dust in their inbox, at least not as many.

We’ve ran three live one-topic workshops over the past year, and watching audience participation and excitement around registration has inspired us as well. An easy to use online shop feels like the quickest way to get our products and knowledge to people who want it.

This is also going to allow us to work within the changes that Pinterest is making. We want to be flexible and quick to pivot in our business, to make sure that our customers and clients are getting the best and most updated information and teaching.

Learn more about our big pivot in our client services packages