Finding Your Evangelists
I recently wrote an article titled ‘Finding Your Evangelists’ for chief marketer magazine. It just got published. here.
The State Of Retail
As you all know the world of retail is presently living in the house of pain. Last week I had a long conversation with my cousin who works for a big retailer in the home improvement space. That section of the market has been facing the full brunt of the soft housing market so I wanted to get news from …
Williams-sonoma.com Adds Talking Pictures
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 …
Wilsons Leather – The Beginning Of The End
It’s amazing how much one can tell by simply looking at a retailers ecommerce site. Over the months I’ve severely criticized Wilsons Leather (here), and now, the company is finally admitting failure. This morning Chain Store Age (login required) reported: Wilsons The Leather Experts Inc. will close the majority of its 260 mall locations and cut more than 1,000 jobs, …
It’s Not Really A “Subscriber Exclusive” If Everyone Is Invited, Right?
This morning I got a special email from Wilsons Leather. The email informed me I was getting an exclusive additional 20% off for being a member of their mailing list. I was stoked. But then, at the bottom of the promo I saw a link that let me forward the email to a friend. So I forwarded it to myself …
An Idea For Redenvelope.com
Redenvelope.com is a great site but they need to refrain from posting intimate images on their homepage between 9AM-5PM (office hours).
Does this constitute bad usability?
While on swisscolony.com I noticed their Fruit Spread Sampler came in two varieties: box of 9 and box of 18. However, the product description states “Gift includes six tempting flavors—strawberry, orange marmalade, peach, raspberry, grape and blueberry”. My question is if there are six flavors and 9 jars which three flavors get added twice? Do you believe this ambiguity might …
Gloss No More
After 6 years serving the $1.7 Billion dollar online cosmetics market Gloss.com (180 on IR 500) has shut down. Gloss.com was run by the $7 Billion dollar cosmetics giant Estee Lauder. Traditional retailers are quickly finding out just how competitive the online arena is. Here is a chart comparing traffic between Gloss.com and other beauty product etailers:
An idea
Allrecipies.com is a great site and I often use it for recipes and cooking instruction. The other day I found a dish called anniversary chicken. Only problem was that I didn’t have teriyaki basting sauce. I wish the ingredients were listed in a format where I could mark a little x on an item I did not have and then …
Why We Sell
Ultimately your online storefront is just that, a storefront. Many retailers forget that good retailing is so so much more than having a slick eCommerce site. Fortunately we still have companies like L’OCCITANE en Provence. I don’t know of other retailers that do this but L’OCCITANE provides braille labeling on their products. Why? because respect is one of their core …
I Love You, But Please Slow Down
Amiestreet.com is a great music site I discovered through TechCrunch. But they send too many emails. I love them but I need them to slow down and it’s a pity their email only highlights an unsubscribe option when what I really want is an option that lets me reduce emails to once a month. Now I’m sure I could visit …
When The Weather Outside Is Frightful
It’s common knowledge not all store visitors buy, some are there to browse. But customers that visit stores despite bad weather (heavy snow, frigid cold, rain, flooding etc) tend be more serious about making a purchase. I wonder if retailers like Best Buy already know this because this morning was super cold (4 degrees F) and I still went to …
Sortability
One of the biggest benefits of online shopping is that I can organize my consideration set based on cost, popularity, organic or any other parameter. So why most retailers don’t put this front and center on their sites is unknown. Folica.com is one eTailer that does do this really well. Notice the sorting options – Featured, Top Rated, Most Popular, …
Buzz kill
The worst a retailer could do is promote a product that’s not part of the promotion. This morning I was at HickoryFarms.com and saw a very tempting 70% off sale. The image prominently displayed cheese and salami and since I was looking to buy salami I clicked on it. Here is the ad: The only problem is that none of …
The Right Message For The Right Audience At The Right Time
I got an email from Amazon this morning promoting the TomTom GPS system. This was not a blast email but a very well calculated strategy. Amazon has probably noticed I’ve looked at several GPS systems over the year but never managed to pull the trigger. They know I am not a compulsive shopper. In the context on what they know …
