The Fancy, a Pinterest-like site with a focus on not just browsing, but buying from its collection of inspirational imagery, has launched a “Buy Now” button to power purchasing behaviours on any website.

The button is targeted at bloggers and other publishers rather than online merchants and e-commerce sites, and allows readers to purchase featured products without leaving the page.

The button gives bloggers another way to monetise their sites beyond using text-based or banner advertisements by awarding them 2% of the purchase price added to their Fancy account 30 days after shipping.

The Fancy also receives a cut of each purchase made via the button.

Independent Fashion Bloggers

For the launch, The Fancy partnered with the Independent Fashion Bloggers network, which represents around 40,000 writers. The button is likely to be highly popular among the growing community of fashion bloggers, who frequently post images of clothing and accessories similar to those found on The Fancy.

IFB Editor Taylor Davies told TechCrunch she thinks the button could end up being “the next step in how we, as blog consumers, shop and purchase things we like and see.”

Power partnerships

The connection to the fashion industry is one of The Fancy’s key strengths, evident in the fact that one of its big investors is PPR, the $25 billion firm which owns major fashion brands like Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga.

Several high fashion sites now sport Fancy’s social commerce integrations, thanks in no small part to this relationship.

The Fancy also partnered with Oscar de la Renta earlier this year to sell an item from the designer’s spring collection, and saw $10,000 worth of shirts sold in the first week.

Fancy VS Pinterest

Making the products shoppable is the major differentiating factor between The Fancy and its rival Pinterest. Pinterest, the first to stake the claim in the social scrapcooking trend, has amassed a sizeable following of 10million users in a relatively short time.

Pinterest backer Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten, told Forbes, “there are so many copycats of Pinterest already who are focusing just on shopping but they are not getting as much attraction as Pinterest because they are too commercial.”

However, The Fancy is growing in numbers and size, recently doubling its users in two months to 500,000 and increasing its takings from $50,000 a week in May to $75,000 in July. “Many people say they do social shopping, but nobody does it as extensively as we do,” CEO Joe Einhorn told TechCrunch.

Either way, it signals another way brands can potentially use social to drive sales.