Pinterest To Add 'Buy' Button, Google On Deck

Easy purchasing will be coming to your Pinterest board soon. Pinterest, the site where users post pictures and products to virtual boards, revealed design mock-ups and plans for its upcoming "Action Buttons" Monday at MIT's EmTech Digital conference, TechCrunch reports.

The buttons could allow users to instantly purchase items via third-party retailers all while never leaving Pinterest. For example, Instacart currently posts recipes on Pinterest. By adding an "Action button," Instacart could let users add necessary ingredients to their shopping cart and set them to deliver with one click. Amazon could integrate a "Wish List" button that will allow users to add items to their Amazon Wish List or even purchase directly from Pinterest.

Currently, pins can be linked to direct users to a retailer's website. But by clicking that, Pinterest users are leaving the site. So this move is in the company's interest to keep users on Pinterest.

Additionally, some items can be "pinned" and then forgotten. Pins are not necessarily refreshed for when the item is no longer available for purchase. Therefore, retailers could see more sales driven by Pinterest's over 70 million active users.

The news -- while expected for 2016 as Re/code reported the plan back in February -- comes just days after Google confirmed it will introduce a "Buy" button to its search results. What's taking so long? Pinterest is currently working on locking down partnerships, the company's head of partnerships Tim Kendall said at Monday's conference.

Meanwhile, Amazon is testing a Pinterest-like site called Amazon Stream, which offers a grid of products that users can quickly browse through and click to purchase. Pinterest was last valued at $11 billion and has not revealed revenue numbers.