Retail, in the eyes of the everyday customer

DogIDs.com’s security seal is accompanied with a video.  Smart idea.

Many retailers look at their online channel as just another mode to complete a sale.  But that’s a low yield strategy.  Smart retailers use their online channels to do things that are either extremely expensive or impossible offline.  And the smartest ones execute ideas that are brilliant AND inexpensive.

Ever since discovering eyebuydirect.com through getelastic.com I’ve considered their Wall of Frame a brilliant example of how an online store can be used to do something entirely new.  The best way to convince a customer to buy from you online is to demonstrate how it benefits THEM.  Everyone talks about price advantages and better service blah blah but Wall of Frame is something tangible, something the customer can compare with how they shop offline and see a clear benefit.

What impresses even more is discovering a competitor who sees Wall of Frame, realizes they cannot compete on execution but manages to find a cost effective workaround that seems to work just as well.

That retailer would be Debby Burk Optical.  They’ve created something new with the help of Skype.  If a customer has a Skype account they can make a frame selection and have a Debby Burk associate wear and demo it through Skype video conferencing.  The idea is not fool proof: everyone does not have Skype and just because a frame looks good on a model does not mean it will work for the customer.  Someone who has seen Wall of Frame will remain unimpressed but Debby Burk is making an intelligent bet most of their customers have no idea what Wall of Frame is.  For them seeing Skype is a quantum leap.  Best of all, adding Skype did not require additional development costs.

A year from now if Debby Burk sees Skype interactions increase conversions 10% they can take supplemental income and reinvest it to build their own Wall of Frame.

Over the next few years online retailers will increasingly start depending on video as a selling tool. Once ready for video these etailers would gain much by studying williams-sonoma.com. Not only is the company a pioneer but their videos are high quality and really accentuate the shopping experience. Excellent execution, Mr. Patrick Connolly.

In the previous post I noted that the quality of an ecommerce site strongly suggests the overall health of the retailer. Well, williams-sonoma.com is a great example of that.

A few years back I started looking at the differences between bestbuy.com and the best buy stores. One immediate realization was that when at the store a salesperson would help understand why I needed a certain big screen TV. This experience was totally missing online. When I shared this with friends their biggest concern was cost. They believed it to be a very expensive solution for an incremental improvement. But Best Buy did not need high production quality. This could be part of the training program where associates from each store would need to present a sale on camera. Then the marketing department could pick the best videos and post them online.

Today I stand vindicated. J&R Electronics is rolling out hundreds of online videos of sales associates explaining the intricacies of products so the site can mimic customer service in stores.

BuyCostumes.com started using video on their site last year. Back then it looked clunky and force fitted. 365 days later they have developed a better integrated experience. Video is still used for only popular items but customers seem to like the new site experience better because according to compete.com the ‘Attention’ on the site has gone up 7% from the same time-period last year:

Also, you can check out their video experience at: http://www.buycostumes.com/Search_All_video/Category/0/Product/10179/ProductDetail.aspx#

Bonus: Here is some interesting Halloween trivia:

- Halloween is a $5 Billion dollar a year market
- The average person spends $65 bucks on Halloween ’stuff’

With bandwidth explosion and growing popularity of online video consumption it is surprising retailers had not started using video as a selling tool earlier. Maybe it was a cost function or maybe retailers felt that 4% conversion rates were good enough. But now, some online retailers like Spencer Gifts have started embracing video as a means to improve conversion rates. Here is an example (Click on the ‘play video’ link.):

http://www.spencersonline.com/fun-and-games_gags/humphrey-the-humping-dog

Another company that is doing a god job with video is Buy.com (ranked 36 on IR500).

While are you at it also check out http://www.skis.com/ to see how they use video.

Macy’s video section here

Now CompUSA (ranked 42 on IR500) reports they too have seen a 35% improvement in conversion rates with the introduction of video on their site.

Video also appears as item 3 on the “10 tips on ‘product page’ design in time for Christmas” list by e-consultancy