Pinterest Predicts is live!
See what's in store for 2024 in our Trend Forecast report.

Trying to meet requirements for my merchant's domain: image quality, and more?

creamaga
Just visiting

Hello everyone,

 

I'm a French creator, with modest activity in South Burgundy. I have an online shop visible at https://creamaga.com.

I've imported a catalog via XML from there to my Pinterest account. I'm only discovering how things work here, with the limited number of appeals and all. Scary. 🙂

1. So, my first request got rejected. It appears the image quality is not good enough. If you have some experience, would you be so kind and take a minute to browse my website, and tell me what's lacking?

I'm guessing some of my older products might have too small images. See old: https://creamaga.com/produit/mobile-bebe-origami-avion-bois-bleu-ciel-bleu-gris-et-blanc/

vs. new: https://creamaga.com/produit/mobile-bebe-avion-origamis-rose-et-bleu-pastel-cuivre-nacre/.

Are there precise guidelines from Pinterest documentation for image quality? Like size, ratio and such?

Do you think the image quality from the second link above is good enough?

 

2. Now, if I fix the images and make a first appeal, is it possible that Pinterest rejects it again for another aspect that wasn't looked at during my initial attempt?

I've read on these boards about common required pages such as "about us", legal stuff, etc. I have these on my website, would you say it's good enough? Whether they're easy enough to find, and if you read French, if the content seems ok?

- https://creamaga.com/a-propos/ (about, top menu)

- https://creamaga.com/contact/ (top menu)

- https://creamaga.com/mentions-legales-cgv/ (every page bottom menu, with legal, refund policy, cookies...)

 

3. I've read general guidelines from Pinterest, and hope that the overall quality of my website is close to their requirements, with some adjustments. Any other aspects I should consider?

 

Finally, sorry if this post is too long with too many questions! I'll adjust with time if things should be done differently. 🙂

 

Thanks a ton.

 

Magali.

1 Kudo
6 Replies
simplepinmedia
Pinterest Pioneer
Pinterest Pioneer

Hi @creamaga! First of all your mobiles are beautiful! I LOVE them!

Qualifying for the Verified Merchant status can be a bit daunting for sure. I'll try to point out some areas of improvement for you but they won't be a guarantee of approval. 

1. I don't *think your image sizes are the issue. From what I could tell, a few of the product images were a bit blurry/fuzzy. So, the resolution may be off. See examples: 

Screen Shot 2022-06-27 at 11.46.46 AM.png

Screen Shot 2022-06-27 at 11.41.18 AM.png

 

2. You will need to clearly list out each legal category instead of combining them on one page. Pinterest really sees this as important to be as clear as possible about your shipping policy, refund policy, privacy policy, etc. See example below:

Screen Shot 2022-06-27 at 11.53.11 AM.png

That's a start! Tag me and let me know how it goes!

-Tabby 

2 Kudos
creamaga
Just visiting

Hi @simplepinmedia,

Thank you very much for the kind words, feels good.

Also, thank you for the time you took to give this detailed answer, it helps a lot.

I'll be sure to split the legal categories as you pointed out.

About images, I'll have to check the source pictures and see if successive uploads did some wrong to the files. (I sometimes export products from my ETSY shop into my website.)

If I miss some of the source files, or if they were fuzzy in the first place, do you know if Pinterest scans only the catalogue I'm sending, or will they check my whole website?
I was wondering if as a first approach, I could only submit the products I think are good enough, and add the other ones as I find time to "polish" them.
Do you reckon that would work?

In any case, thank you again, I'll get to work with this and come back when I hope it's good enough.

Magali

1 Kudo
simplepinmedia
Pinterest Pioneer
Pinterest Pioneer

@creamaga I don't know for sure whether they will "see" the content that could use polishing but I would err on the chance of them being more picky than less picky. You know what I mean? 

Best of luck getting this approved! 

There may be more ideas others have as well. Hopefully, they'll chime in if so 🙂 

-Tabby

0 Kudos
shopfocaldecor
Posts regularly

@creamaga @simplepinmedia 

Don't expect Pinterest's Verified Merchant team to be much help; they either do not respond or will tell you that they are unable to provide you with any specifics on the issue your account is facing. I have reason to believe someone or some group on the Pinterest Verified Merchant team is actively undermining legitimate businesses. A plethora of illegitimate businesses are being approved as Verified Merchants even though their websites are littered with Pinterest Verified Merchant violations and have associations with illegal copyright infringing businesses. You can find more details in the post linked here: Copyright Issues and URGENT Verified Merchant Account Issue

Unfortunately, until Pinterest addresses these issues with the VM program, legitimate businesses will continue to receive ambiguous and unclear reasons for VM rejection. I would recommend not making radical changes to your website in order to fulfil unclear Pinterest guidelines for the time being. You may lose a lot of your original work that you are proud of and STILL be rejected for Verified Merchant status.

Apparently, a lot of businesses seeking VM approval on Pinterest do not have the same "height quality products" like tidecor.com (@TidecorShop):

image (2).pngimage (3).png

However, if you do have "height quality" Pinterest will verify your account within only a few days of your website existing:

unnamed (3) (1).png

0 Kudos
creamaga
Just visiting

Hi and thank you both for your answers.

The opacity of the approval process indeed does not encourage spending time on website changes when one's not sure of their relevance.

If it's to the point where the game is rigged, it's even worse.

I get an Access denied error when trying to get to the link https://community.pinterest.biz/t5/abuse-reports/re-copyright-issues-and-urgent-verified-merchant-ac... you provided:


 You do not have sufficient privileges for this resource or its parent to perform this action.

I need to evaluate this a bit more. I'll try and browse these boards to get a better feeling of all this, I'm kinda in the dark for now. 🙂

Thank you again for your time.

0 Kudos
creamaga
Just visiting

Hi @shopfocaldecor,

I came back to your answer, and was able to read the thread you linked to by going to your profile.

For others to access, here is the link: https://community.pinterest.biz/t5/support-and-questions/copyright-issues-and-urgent-verified-mercha....

It's indeed an edifying read... I hope you get things worked out.

As you mentioned, unless Pinterest decides to clarify their VM approval process in the future, there is no incitement to try and follow their guidelines, which are also quite vague.

I was very optimistic in tackling Pinterest after setting up Google Shopping, Facebook and Instagram shops, which was almost a breeze, with precise guidelines and errors to fix. Now I wonder...

Thank you.

0 Kudos