Not only is Pinterest, the graphics-driven social media site, driving more traffic to retailers’ sites, those shoppers spend more per order. Those are just some of the findings of a new study by Shopify. Pinterest is a site that allows users to “pin” photos of products they like, inspirational outfits and room designs and similar material to their pages — and to share those images with other users.

The still-new site is particularly popular with women, and for many users functions as a virtual shopping list as well as an idea generator for creative endeavors ranging from picking new outfits to home renovation.

Shopify, which handles back-end management for thousands of online retailers, polled its own clients about the effects they’re seeing from Pinterest.

The study found that Pinterest users do actually buy many of the products they pin — and they tend to spend big. The average shopper who comes to a retailer’s site from Pinterest spends twice as much as the typical Facebook-referred shopper.

And it’s not just a trickle of customers — Pinterest is the third biggest referral source for Shopify’s partners. Only Facebook drives more traffic; Twitter is on par with Pinterest.

For more details, Shopify has a series of infographics here.

Tags: Facebook, online retail, Pinterest, Shopify, twitter