The reach of Pinterest’s inspiration is going much further than weddings and cupcakes, it is inspiring start-up businesses. One of these business is an iPad app called Bazaart, and it is receiving international recognition for its innovation. The app allows you to use your Pinterst pins in an fun and artistic way by creating collages with them.
Along with being able to make art with your pins, it makes shopping from your pins easier, a perk for retailers and consumers alike.
I recently had the opportunity to ask Gili Golander, the fashion director of the Bazaart team a few questions about the app. Here’s a bit of that interview:
1. Why make an app based on Pinterest pins?
“Bazaart’s core is shoppable collages, but we think that collages based on products alone are really boring and lack in the inspiration department. So, while we participated this summer in the DreamIt Ventures startup accelerator in NYC, we looked at ways to give our app a boost.”
“Drawing from our experience, we noticed that people, OK mainly women, love to collect fashion items on Pinterest. But what can they do with those carefully curated wish lists except keep pinning and wishing and making more boards? Well, not so much. As a fashion lover and a highly visual person, I felt that I have already put in the time doing the labor of love of curating what inspires me on my Pinterest boards.”
“And so, the idea of letting people create collages from their Pinterest boards came about. Now, with Bazaart, seeing what goes with what, mixing and matching, becomes a fun and easy task, and I can instantly publish, send and re-pin my complete, shoppable, fashion ideas.”
2. Where did the Bazaart name come from?
“Bazaart stands for Bazaar + Art. Bazaar is a word that stands for market in many languages, and art is all about the artistic nature of the collages people create on Bazaart. We think that for a collage based shopping app, this name works well. Lately, I’ve met with some French people to whom we presented Bazaart, and I have to say it even sounds better when they pronounce it with a French accent :-)”
3. Bazaart recently won an award at a startup competition hosted by Microsoft Israel R&D. Congratulations! What does it mean for Bazaart?
“I have pitched Bazaart in an women entrepreneurs event co-hosted by Microsoft and the Yazamiyot (women entrepreneurs in Hebrew) organization and won first prize, plus we were also selected by the Microsoft team to present in their ThinkNext event with Steve Ballmer as the guest of honor. We feel honored to get so much love and exposure from Microsoft, who are really going out of their way to promote innovation in Israel these days. Seeing the enthusiasm of the women I presented to at the pitch event was all I needed to validate the concept of Bazaart. They absolutely loved it! In addition, the visitors at ThinkNext were very curious and excited about Bazaart and we received a lot of attention from it.”
4. The addition of being able to click though the pins used for shopping is great! Are there any other changes we can look forward to?
“Thank you! We are currently working on making the app much more social and will release that upgrade very soon. Then, we are planning a massive enhancement geared towards making the app more shoppable but I cannot elaborate on that yet. Stay tuned :-)”
5. How do you feel about using the app for other uses than fashion?
“We are feeling very positive about that. We have been approached by the home decor, wedding and food verticals, and we feel that Bazaart can be very suitable for all lifestyle related topics that have a highly visual aspect. However, we decided to start with fashion, so we can perfect the user experience, before venturing on and expanding to other domains.”
6. Do you have a favorite collage made with the app?
“Oh my, it’s like asking a mom to choose her most beloved child 🙂 I love so many of them, and I fall in love with a new one every day… But recently we have started to pick a “Bazaart of the Week” so you can see some of my latest loves on https://pinterest.com/bazaart/bazaart-of-the-week.”
_________________________________________________
In addition to the recognition from Microsoft, Bazaart recently reported on their blog that they were “selected by the UK embassy in Israel as part of an elite group of 15 startups, to participate in the first TeXchange program and so our Fashion Director, Gili, got to fly to London, visit Tech City, meet British mentors and entrepreneurs, pitch to investors and prospective customers (such as Burberry, Marks and Spencer, Tesco, and others.”
Last summer, Bazaart teamed up with online fashion retailer Lion’esque to run a Pinterest contest maybe we will see collaborations with British retailers in the future.
Bazaart in Action
Now that you know a little of the story behind the Bazaart app, here’s a peek:
You can select from the 25 most recent pins from any of your boards to create your collage. You can also use pins from other accounts. For example, let’s say your favorite clothing shop has just pinned their latest collection, by entering their Pinterest username into the app, you could create a collage of the perfect outfit from their boards.
Within the app you can see your collages and collages made by others. When you tap on a collage, it flips and you can see all of the pins used to make it. From there, you can choose to repin or open any of the pins on Pinterest.
You can click though the pin and be taken to the source of the image, an online retailer in this case. Collages can be pinned to Pinterest and they link to a Bazaart web page. There, you can see which Pinterest account the pins came from, but at this time you can’t see the individual pins used in the collage. Hopefully, this will be one of the future enhancements to Bazaart.
As Pinterest continues to evolve, Bazaart will surely evolve with it. From its launch earlier this year its innovative, forward thinking creators have brought it long way and the international community has taken notice. Stay tuned for more updates.
*****Update*****
On 12/12/12 Bazaart made a fabulous update to their website. Now, when you click though a collage pin to their site, you can see the collage and each pin used to make it. The pins used are all clickable and take you back to the pin, making the Bazaart collages found on Pinterest much more shoppable!
They also just announced a collaboration with enVie (a Viennese fashion brand). Together, they are challenging Bazaart users to create their holiday Xmas wishlist collage with Bazaart including an enVie item. Participants have a chance of winning one of enVie’s luxury scarves. The contest runs December 12-24, 2012. Click here for more details, maybe you’ll be the lucky winner!
