Consumers are in Charge

Early last Thursday morning I returned from the 2010 Shop.org Merchandising Workshop event that was held in Huntington Beach, Ca. This was a fantastic opportunity to learn what 250 of the top executives and experts in eCommerce are talking about and doing to innovate and improve sales, traffic, and customer experience. The diversity of products, clientele and branding made for some very interesting discussion. From high-end fashion, jewelry, sporting goods, toys and infant all the way to security software. There was a dichotomy of eCommerce online stores and traditional brick and mortar change whose clientele are demanding an online experience.

I was left with some very distinct impressions about where this industry is headed, and ultimately who is in control. There were speakers and roundtables to cover lots of topics….Customer engagement, “customercentric” merchandising, optimization and testing, empowering the market, and photography to drive, conversion. My favorite session covered using online video to optimize the customer experience. The foundation that was laid with every discussion was this: To survive you must adapt quickly, you must make the experience for each customer rich and complete, and the customer is in the drivers seat. Consumers are savvy and fickle, and they have a short attention span.

Understanding my personal bias I was very interested in the effect that video is having upon eCommerce. I personally had some great discussions with clients who talked about all of the challenges that video presents. In many of the sessions the challenges were repeatedly outlined. Some were answered and others remain to be addressed:

• How do I make a cost effective video?
• How do I improve traffic with video?
• Should I incorporate my brand with video?
• Should I create product videos or commercial videos?
• How do I use YouTube and still drive conversions?
• How can I possibly shoot that many videos?
• How will I know if video is effective?
• How do I manage user-generated video for my benefit?
• Do I need to hire an agency?
• Can I film these videos onsite?
• What do I need to do to drive SEO?

Consumers today are demanding video to aid their buying decisions, and they are telling us that with their credit cards. Several speakers shared personal case studies citing industry standard increases of 30-35%. Anecdotes in every conversation with existing clients and others that have dipped their toes into the video pool told us that they are seeing dramatic conversion spikes when they offer their customers video content to describe products. eCommerce giants like Zappo’s and HSN.com talked about generating as many as 50,000 product videos this year. Speakers from Northface, Columbia and Ice.com talked about the incremental gains enjoyed with limited initial testing. Ice.com, for example, saw a 50% reduction in returns, along with 25% conversion lift when using video on landing pages. The two questions on everyone’s mind came down to optimization and scale. What kind of video converts most effectively? And how do I produce that video at scale?

As a husband I have learned to “sympathize with dry mouthedness” rather than get a glass of water for my wife. Please understand that Invodo has a cool refreshing glass waiting though.