What's on your Verified Merchant Program Wishlist?

[bodymindmood]

Please Comment With Your Wishlist Ideas + Thoughts

A topic that has always been front and center here on the PBC is the VMP or Verified Merchant Program. While posts, comments, and threads have not always been the kindest they certainly have been consistent and in some cases educational and intriguing? for everyone who reads them.

• Selling your products on Pinterest + Shopify started in 2015 and it has really grown -
  Read the Shopify Blog Post Announcement June 2nd 2015

A lot has changed since 2015  including the number of people buying and selling online.  I should know I participated in the Shopify + Pinterest Program with a business I started in 2014 and I did for a short time sell my products on Pinterest unfortunately I was a little early when it came to owning | operating | selling online and Pinterest was not at that time the right platform for my business so I moved my products to a different platform which was more appropriate and my business is still growing today.

The Verified Merchant Program has become something that everyone wants to participate in but overtime the VMP Guidelines and requirements have become harder for businesses to meet making it harder to become Verified on Pinterest. As a PBC Member who responds to posts about the Verified Merchant Program I have considered things that could be changed or added to make the VMP Guidelines + Verification Process easier for businesses who are looking to get verified.

What's on your Verified Merchant Program Wishlist? 

I would love to hear your what you would add to your VMP Wishlist 🛍

Please Comment Below See What I Have Added 👇

[bodymindmood · Accepted solution]

There are many things I would add but the three points below are the first things that come to mind.

My Verified Merchant Program Wishlist 🛍

• Help information if there was a specific issue with my application or at least a guideline to follow so I could fix whatever the problem was.
• A Clear List of what must be included on the Merchant Website
• A Clear List of Definitions | Meanings of the auto generated responses if a business is not approved

Lisa.

[thehalcyonhive]

@bodymindmood great topic!

I agree with you and would love to see more specific details when an application is denied.  I understand Pinterest gets a TON of VMP applications and it may be difficult for them to respond with specific details with each application that gets rejected, but it would be a huge help. 

One example I've seen recently was for "Reason - Merchant's domain is incomplete" and the recommendation they gave is to "ensure that your domain is complete without missing products, images, or text".   Just wondering what are the missing products, images, and text Pinterest is looking for?  Because to me, the clients website had everything required.  

@terezatoledo we were just talking about this! 🙂

[bodymindmood]

@thehalcyonhive @terezatoledo 

Missing Products, images and the like are definitely items that need to have an explanation - I think its alot to ask people to go back to their website | profile et al. and 'fix' something without an explanation at all or an explanation that offers no real explanation at all. In responding to posts I have gone and looked at at people's websites and found nothing wrong or out of line with the Guidelines. 

Most recently (2 days ago) I discovered here on the PBC that the Guidelines have been updated but not updated on Pinterest Help - if I understood correctly applicants now have to have had a Pinterest Business Account for at least 3 months and their business has to have been active for at least 9 months.

I have to wonder if there are more updates happening then have been added to the Guidelines on Pinterest Help it would definitely explain a lot.

Lisa

[thehalcyonhive]

@bodymindmood I just saw that post here in the PBC too about the updated guidelines. 

[bodymindmood]

I was really glad I got that verified.

Lisa

[terezatoledo]

@bodymindmood that's for posting this! I've been talking about the VMP with @thehalcyonhive and find the whole process quite unclear.

I'm trying to help a business to get this working for over a year and still don't have clear guidance. I don't want to sound negative, however the reasons given to why the VMP is denied aren't quite clear. We keep trying to interpret them and take action, just to hit another no.

I feel exactly the same way @bodymindmood .

[wildrootmarketing]

Can you link the post to this?? I have multiple accounts that are having Catalog issues and I am trying to get to the bottom of it!

[thehalcyonhive]

@wildrootmarketing what are the issues they are having?  Do they have manual catalogs set up?  

[bodymindmood]

@terezatoledo @thehalcyonhive 

When I first started responding to post here on the PBC about the program it was tough but reaching back to what I did when I was approved through Shopify a lot of it came down to the following things:

1. Quality of the website + content - does the website look 'junky', are the images | video any good, is it a good user experience meaning are the goals of the creator of the site being met when the user arrives on the site "good user experience"
2. Proper Policies + Guidelines by the Seller - are the policies et al written by the Seller or are they professional with real avenues to pursue if something should go wrong
3. Is the Seller following the Pinterest Guidelines + Recom., is the site "Pinterest Friendly" Is the Seller a user of Pinterest with a Business Account and is the Sellers Business 'solid'
4. Does everything match to the Seller email address, other relevant information - example Pinterest doesn't appear to like a gmail address for all Customer Relations re Seller they generally prefer an email address associated with the website address (this is an observation)
5. Is it clear that Pinterest is not responsible if a problem should arise because ultimately the responsibility has to fall to the Seller and not Pinterest.

I had to insert certain language to my website policies that Pinterest required in order to be approved so I did and I was approved. At that time there was contact with those who were doing the approval and there were no catalogs or installing code et al it was automated well as automated as it could be for 2016 please also remember keywords werent a thing and hashtags were still being used it was still new to selling online. 

Lisa