With Pinpointing, Zappos hooks up Pinterest with e-commerce

A look at Pinpointing from Zappos.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Amazon's online shoe seller Zappos is combining the popularity of Pinterest with its own products in a new service.

Dubbed Pinpointing, the service delivers Zappos products based on what a user has pinned. In addition, the service will list products that had been pinned recently. Pinpointing lists a host of product categories, including shoes, skirts, dresses, and jeans.

In order to take advantage of the features, users can enter their own Pinterest username to see what sort of Zappos recommendations might relate to their previously pinned items. They can also input another person's username to see recommendations based on those.

That Zappos has found a way to combine e-commerce and Pinterest speaks to the social network's continued value to e-retailers. Earlier this year, Pinterest raised $100 million in a funding round led by Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten, which doled out more than half of that amount.

In an interview with TechCrunch earlier this year, Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said that his company intends to allow its customers to "pin their own images" and buy within the same pane.

Pinpointing is available now on Zappos' Web site.