How to Connect BigCommerce to Pinterest

Three ways to connect BigCommerce to Pinterest

1. BigCommerce's own channels and apps

BigCommerce has no Pinterest catalog sync of its own. Pinterest apps in the BigCommerce App Marketplace come from third parties, so check what each one syncs and what it costs - or use a feed or connector that hosts a data source URL for Pinterest.

2. Export a file yourself

BigCommerce can export your products to a CSV (Products > Export), but the file uses BigCommerce's own template and columns - not the field names and formats Pinterest expects - and it's a snapshot, so it's out of date as soon as a price or stock level changes. If you go this way, start from our free Pinterest Catalog CSV Template Generator so at least the columns are right.

3. A store catalog connector

A connector reads your BigCommerce catalog through BigCommerce's REST API, using a read-only API account you create in your control panel, and builds the Pinterest feed for you. BigCommerce can notify a connector through webhooks when a product, price, or stock level changes, so updates arrive within moments - and only the products that changed need to be read again. The connector hosts the feed at a URL that Pinterest reads on a schedule, and one connection can usually feed several platforms at once.

What Pinterest needs

• A Pinterest business account with your website claimed - every product link must be on the domain you claimed.
• Seven fields per product: id, title, description, link, image_link, price, and availability (in stock, out of stock, or preorder), plus item_group_id for variants.
• A Google product category is strongly recommended - it's how Pinterest groups and targets products.
• A data source - a CSV, TSV, or XML file uploaded once, or hosted at a URL that Pinterest re-reads about once every 24 hours.

How your BigCommerce fields map to Pinterest

The table above shows where each Pinterest field comes from in your BigCommerce catalog. A few BigCommerce details need extra care:

• Variants: each combination of options (Navy / M, Navy / L...) should become its own listing with its own price, stock, SKU, and image, grouped under the product with a shared item_group_id. Name your options Color and Size so they're read as color and size, and leave out variants with purchasing disabled.
• Product type: BigCommerce categories are what you map to a Google product category. Stores often reuse a name under different parents (Men > Shirts, Women > Shirts), so map by the full path, and skip shopping groups like "Sale" or "New".
• Identifiers and condition: BigCommerce has Brand, GTIN, UPC, MPN, and Condition fields - fill them in and they come straight across. Products without a brand need a default, usually your store's name.
• Clothing details: BigCommerce has no gender or age group fields, and Google and Facebook require them - with a color and a size - on clothing and shoes. Add them as custom fields, or set them by product name if your tool supports it.
• Prices and tax: if your store enters prices with tax included, check what Pinterest expects for each country - US listings, for example, are shown without tax.

Step by step

1. Get your Pinterest account ready - see "What Pinterest needs" above.
2. Create a read-only API account. In your BigCommerce control panel, go to Settings > Store-level API accounts and click Create API account. Set Products and Information & settings to Read-only, leave the rest at None, and save. Copy the API path, access token, and client secret - BigCommerce shows them only once.
3. Map your product types to Google product categories. Pinterest needs to know what each product is. Map each of your BigCommerce categories (shown as full paths like "Men > Shirts") to one category from the Google product category list once, and every product with that value is categorized from then on.
4. Add the data source in Pinterest. In Pinterest Business, open Catalogs, add a data source, and paste your feed URL (with its username and password if it's protected). Pinterest checks it, then re-reads it about once a day.
5. Check the first import. Review the errors Pinterest reports and fix them in BigCommerce, not in the feed - your store stays the single source of truth.

Common BigCommerce to Pinterest problems

• Hidden, disabled, and price-hidden products. Only visible products a shopper can buy at a shown price belong in the feed - hide a product, turn off purchasing, or hide its price in BigCommerce and it should drop out.
• Digital products and headless storefronts. Digital products aren't sold through shopping catalogs. If shoppers buy on a separate headless storefront, product links must point there, not to your BigCommerce store address.
• "Domain not claimed" or links rejected. Claim the exact domain your product pages use, including whether it has www.
• Products missing after an upload. Check the data source's errors in Pinterest - How to Fix Pinterest Catalog Errors covers each one.

Related guides

For more on Pinterest itself, see What Is a Pinterest Catalog?. On a different store platform? WooCommerce to Pinterest, PrestaShop to Pinterest, Wix to Pinterest, Square to Pinterest, Squarespace to Pinterest, and Webflow to Pinterest cover the same setup for those stores.