Posts Tagged ‘Visual Merchandising’
Gift Ideas
MetroKitchen.com is a site that specializes in cookware. They have a simple, yet very effective Gift Ideas page …

… where shoppers select a relevant option and see a list of highly targeted gifts.
Opportunity: On “For wine fans” page (for example) MetroKitchen.com just lists products–

Which means I have to click the first item, read description, hit back button, click the second item, etc. I wish they had presented Wine Gifts in this format …

… so the shopper could read a short description for each product and then visit product page to make purchase.
Entire Inventory on One Page
Gumshoe.com has a unique merchandising strategy. They list their ENTIRE inventory of 100s of shoes on one page. Play around with their filter options–
Adding Punch to Product Images
The standard product page consists of product image followed by product description. However, to support product description if you can repeat the most important/differentiating points from your description into product image you will dramatically improve effectiveness. Posted below are some e-tailer examples. As you can see, this strategy works for all types of items- from diaper changers to ballet shoes:




Selling 18th Century Items Using YouTube
Every e-tailer (big-small, broad-niche, impulse buy-pricey stuff, PPC-SEO, single purchase-lifetime value) has a definite set of strengths and weaknesses. The key to success is focusing on your strengths.
Jas-townsend.com is a niche e-tailer that is good at making product videos, which they use abundantly throughout their site. I wonder how many conversions can be directly attributed to these clever videos? Some examples-
Anchor product
Most shoppers click in and out of search results quickly, making it a challenge for the e-tailer to tell their story. We already know landing pages, content and site design play a role in slowing shoppers but I think retailers can do a better job using their anchor products.
An anchor product is a product that does a really good job grabbing the browser’s attention. This is not to be confused with a top seller, which both grabs attention and gets purchased. An anchor product is like a great assist, it lifts the team’s performance. In Google Analytics terms an anchor product would be a product page that has a relatively low conversion rate with a relatively high $ Index.
Harry and David is famous for the distinctive way in which they cut their pears:

This would be their anchor product.
But even a site like umbrellasusa.com can use an anchor product:

Visual Merchandising
Typetees.com has figured out a way to maximize screen real estate. To enjoy their cool interface head over to www.typetees.com. Here are two screenshots:
Will this make me convert the moment I land on their site? No. Will it improve the odds of my remembering the site when considering buying a tee shirt in the future? quite possibly, and in a world made or broken by fractional percentage points that’s a big deal.
Related article: The Immersive Store
The Immersive Store, And Other Bed Time Stories
As technology gets better retailers will increasingly try virtualization in the belief that it’ll make customers happy. While I think this is a false assumption the bigger problem is poor execution. Retailers like Sears and Brookstone have horrible implementations:
Others make a valiant effort but fail, Clerkandteller.com is an example:
Here is an awesome ‘concept’ developed by RED Interactive Agency: http://amadeo.ff0000.com/



