Adobe Scene7 Blog – MackTalk

With a new decade upon us, the focus on customer experience with greater attention to rich site functionality (zoom & video) and social media (blogs & reviews) continues to blaze the trends trail. But we already knew that. Our 2009 quantitative survey, "Online Customer Experience - The Next Generation", received 474 responses from retailers, agencies, media, manufacturers, and high-tech companies worldwide, and we were able to identify nearly 12 months ago that the key trends shaping the eCommerce landscape are largely focused on enhancing customer experience. For example:

• 92% of respondents planned to conduct customer experience projects within the year

• Nearly one-fifth of all respondents had already deployed blogs, RSS feeds, user ratings/rankings/comments, and syndicated content

• The top five features deployed among all respondents included lifestyle imagery/photos (38%), alternative images (36%), audio/animation (31%), blogs (29%), and zoom (27%)

Ultimately, consumers are looking to e-tailers to provide more than products and traditional product information, they are wanting to be heard and understood and even messaged to appropriately which means that merchandisers will have to commit to more sophisticated solutions, including the more robust integration of rich media, rich Internet applications and social media.

So what's in store for the future? We think a continued emphasis on multi-channel shopping with mobile being a key driver and the next big growth area. Tell us what you think. Take the Adobe Scene7 2010 Survey: Customer Experience in the New Decade and you'll not only help to shape what online trends will drive 2010, but you'll have first access to the worldwide results covering rich media/merchandising, social media, mobile and personalization features used or planned to enhance customer experience.

Take the survey!

Posted by Scene7 at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that eVideo has been shown to come as close as possible to bringing the retail shopping experience online, it's also been made simpler than ever for business users to feature on their sites. In a few clicks of the mouse, anyone (really!) can upload, transcode, edit, manage and stream video content online. And now, video sets and new 'clickable video hotspots' can augment the customer-facing experience--upping the time consumers spend online and consequently spiking conversion.

Okay, but what are clickable video hotspots you ask? Clickable video hotspots take the guesswork out of shopping for consumers by enabling them to "click" on video clips, captions or graphics of interest and link to external references (with more info or a way to buy). For the business user, it's simple to create this cutting-edge effect, with drag-and-drop elements that make it easy to add things like pop-up messaging. Delivering information about your product's availability, inventory level, and color or size options, will captivate your audience and help them reach a purchase decision more quickly--an unstoppable combination!

Don't just take it from us though, a recent survey of US marketers by PermissionTV ranked interactive video experiences as the top future trend in online video.*

By now you're likely imagining how interactive video can help bridge the gap between your products and the purchase decision.

*eMarketer, Video Content: A Premium Opportunity, Aug 2009

Posted by Scene7 at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you want to move merchandise, just showing customers a picture of a product isn't enough. Gone are the days where heavy copy and small imagery moves the needle. Now, displaying a combination of dynamically served product images including alternative views or full 360-degree spin (leveraging interactive zoom and pan) and product video tells the whole story. After all, dynamic zoom and pan enables users to interactively examine a product in detail, 360-degree spin creates an in-store experience, emulating the process of picking up and examining the merchandise, and video completes the story, replacing the in-store clerk, and demonstrating in perfect clarity the product features and benefits--on demand (no waiting for the clerk to finish up with another patron first!). And the ability of video to educate, inform, and show off products in all their glory has proven again and again to complement the product images and details.

The perfect execution leverages an "integrated viewer or player" that serves any type of rich dynamic content (high resolution sets of images including colors, lifestyle and alternative angles for zooming and panning, sets of videos or both). A user must be able to clearly understand which type of content he/she is viewing, as well as have the ability to easily toggle back and forth between each dynamic content type. That is why in the latest Adobe Scene7 release, mixed media viewers have been added as they enable even "non-technical" users to upload, build, publish and serve integrated combinations of videos, images (color and multiple views), SWFs, spin sets and audio.

Titanium Jewelry is a great example of a site that leverages product imagery alongside product video for the ultimate online shopping experience. Customers can see jewelry in as much detail as they might within a retail environment, and the video brings the piece to life - showing every angle of an item of interest.

Field & Stream is another strong example of a site that integrates product photography stills with product video in a tray viewing format for easy access to expanded product detail. Shoppers can toggle between product shots (hero and lifestyle) and video for an end-to-end overview of the desired merchandise. Field & Stream worked with Circumerro Media, its interactive agency to enable the dynamic media display using Scene7.

Posted by Scene7 at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've been getting some interesting feedback on our Brand Loyalty blog article and whitepaper released in June. What appears to be really capturing people's attention most is Universal McCann's survey of online shoppers and what motivates them to share opinions about their shopping experiences. In the survey, six of the eight top reasons to share opinions involve the shopper's own experience--good or bad--or the experience of their friends. And, most interestingly, the good experiences outrank poor experiences two to one as reason to motivate sharing opinions. Also, good experiences were the top 3 reasons to "spread the word" to others.

The question then, is why web behavior is seemingly polar opposite of traditional retail behavior. Normally we (as consumers) all talk a lot more about a negative shopping experience than a positive one. It's simply human nature to want to "vent." So why are people so much more eager to post a positive review/experience online than a negative one?

One reader believes the reason there is such a great variance in offline/online shopping behavior is because offline transactions are considered "normal," every day fare--we shop, we wait in lines, we encounter all types of sales associates and we pay. It's a non-event. We may talk about the product we've just purchased, but not the process of purchasing it. So, when we complain, it's about the product. For instance, when we buy a new car, we don't typically talk about the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of the showroom and the coffee we consumed in the waiting room, we talk about the car and all its features.

Well, on the internet, the shopping and buying experience become so co-mingled that we become nearly as "wowed" by the process as we are by the product. And that may be the primary reason shoppers are so enthusiastic when all the stars align; when we save a trip to the store (saving precious time), find exactly what we're looking for (versus a wasted trip) and at the price we want to pay (versus wondering if it is available for less elsewhere)... plus enjoy an efficient checkout process (no waiting in line), shoppers just might feel motivated to really celebrate the experience, not just the product, by telling a friend about it. I can't recall that last time I told someone about a great in store experience - but am wowed all the time about things I see on the web. I was just telling someone the other day about a great experience I had using Netflix... that had nothing to do with the movie I was checking out.

What do you think? When you shop do you tend to share your experiences more when you're shopping online or offline? Do you talk more about a good or bad experience?

Posted by Scene7 at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been proven that shoppers' eyes are drawn first to images, so that's the best place to put important information. But you certainly don’t want to be updating your graphic files every time you want to change the text. By using dynamic overlays to flag important messages — such as "New" or "On sale" or "Offered in multiple colors"— you can increase response, click through, and conversion rates.

Let’s look at some examples:



House of Fraser, an International department store group known for delivering a robust online shopping experience, employs flagging to bring attention to items on the site that are "New" or "Exclusive." They do this so that shoppers can learn as much as possible about a product right on the category or browse pages – without having to drill down to a product page level or even the shopping cart. When a product is no longer new or exclusive, it's easy to update the graphic by removing the overlay. It keeps the site fresh and customers looking for the telltale flags.

The Home Shopping Network does a great job at tying overlays to inventory levels and showing that on the product pages. Depending on the level, a different overlay will appear such as "Almost sold out" or "On wait list" or "Sold out.” Elevating such real-time details can instill a sense of urgency that encourages shoppers to act quickly and that, in turn, elevates HSN’s ROI.

Click here if you’d like to learn more about Adobe Scene7 and applying dynamic templates to your site.

Posted by Scene7 at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With more ways than ever for consumers to get what they need when they need it, it’s tougher for retailers to build and maintain brand loyalty online. Online shoppers are in fact the most demanding of all shoppers, with high expectations surrounding the breadth of products offered, up-to-date pricing including sales and promotions, a variety of shipping options and more detailed information than is available in a retail store or catalog.

It is a highly competitive online market space and it is not always the traditional multi-channel retailers that are top of mind when shopping online. In our newly released Brand Loyalty Whitepaper leveraging privately-funded research undertaken with BRS Group Modern Research earlier this year, we found that only eight e-retailers score higher than 6% in unaided recall among online shoppers. Further, social media, more than advertising, is shaping customers’ perceptions on businesses (reviews, feedback forums, blogs, etc.) and the result is an influenced economy that is forcing everyone in the public realm—including the owners of products and brands—to become more transparent, open, conversational and honest. Merchandisers are now in a position where they will have to rethink the way influence is distributed and the new role of marketing communications in an information landscape dictated by consumers.

A few affordable suggestions to gain the much-needed traction e-retailers are after include price transparency, product interactivity (connecting with customers via live chat), RIA’s to create an overall engaging online experience and feedback forums to encourage shoppers to share their recommendations with others.

Our research shows that online shoppers are still walking away from shopping carts (an epidemic rarely seen offline) mainly because there is a lack of information, even less engaging content, and little promise that security (still a top concern for consumers) won’t be compromised. How are you stopping this trend? We would love to hear about loyalty tactics that have worked for you. It’s important to us to share that kind of insight with our customers and reveal problem-solving techniques we know can make a difference in ROI. Download the new whitepaper here.

Posted by Scene7 at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The answer is a resounding “yes” – and it is on the rise. From recent data, online shoppers are far more likely to purchase big-ticket home items, including major appliances like refrigerators and washer/dryer combos, directly from a website than they were 2 years ago (according to a 2008 study by PriceGrabber, a Web-based comparison-shopping service). The study found that “unease with online merchants’ customer service and the fear of making large online purchases have all decreased” since a similar survey was taken back in 2006.

According to the current survey of 1945 shoppers, 24% said they would be apt to buy major appliances online today, compared with around half that number two years ago. While the desire to “touch and feel” large home items remains an important reason for people not buying off the Web, the percentage citing that reason has dropped over the two surveys (from 70% to just over 50%). That is namely because certain retailers have become so good at merchandising online.

Thirty-three percent of online users will now conduct more research online to make sure they get exactly what they want before purchasing. (Source: Jupiter Research Economic Downturn Online Consumer Survey, Q4 2008.) A whopping 13% use the Web specifically to reduce the number of visits to the store. This research process shows an increased concern for doing more targeted shopping and making fewer impulse purchases. Of the online buyers who use more than one Web site when shopping around, 30% are in search of more product information—better images, product detail and beyond—and the vastness of the sites offering relevant product information has proved valuable rather than daunting. In fact, 58% of online users say that the breadth of information available online helps them feel more confident that they are buying the right product to meet their needs. (Source: JupiterResearch/NPD Retail Consumer Survey (04/08), n = 2,231 (US).)

Ultimately, much of our goal at Adobe Scene7 has been to support the consumer quest for information for either direct ecommerce purchase or research prior to store purchase – ranging from basic enhancements (zoom, alt views) to more advanced shopping tools such as visual configurators, where shoppers can actually visualize more on the web than they can in the store with these interactive selling tools. Swapping out basic colors is one thing, but Sub-Zero is one appliance manufacturer that has given new meaning to customization, actually enabling shoppers to view appliances in different kitchen environments, and change appliance finishes, cabinets, walls, countertops, trim and floors to reflect personal style and color palette. As this implementation caught my eye – I thought anyone who is selling bigger ticket items would be interested in checking this best practice out.

Posted by Scene7 at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why should shoppers have to navigate all the way down to product detail pages to find key information? By making details available sooner rather than later, you can improve the overall shopping experience. Add more information in your category and search result pages, including details like price, available colors and sizes, alternative views, special offers, and even an ‘Add to cart’ button. For example:

Lands' End
This site requires minimal clicking. By just mousing over any image, alternative views for pricing, special offers, and color options are immediately displayed. When you click on a color swatch, the alternative views change to that color. When you click through to the product page, the color remains the same as what you were just viewing on the category page.

We conducted a survey earlier this year and the results only confirm that Lands’ End is following “best practices” in the way that they merchandise their inventory. Of those who responded to our survey, the following tactics were found very effective/effective:

Alternative images – 99%
Color swatching / colorizing – 97%
Lifestyle imagery / photos – 95%
Quick looks & rollover views – 93%
Visual filtering & advanced search – 93%

Posted by Scene7 at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Make your site come to life by using animations to show off your merchandise. Show how the material moves, how the fabric flows, and how the fashion fits in a world beyond two dimensions. In the examples below, shoppers see models walk onto a webpage, twirl and show off their garments.

David's Bridal
David's Bridal has made it their mission to make weddings spectacular and they've started with their website. The excitement of shopping for your big day is brought to life through animations presented right on the category page. Shoppers can click to watch the models twirl their bridal gowns – offering a complete 360 degree view of the dress. David’s is creating a precedent by making wedding day planning a simple click instead of an exhausting trip.

StellaMcCartney.com
This revolutionary designer has taken "cutting edge" to the next level by bringing her designs to life online through video. Get a glimpse at a playful model as she dons Stella’s designs beautifully and flirts with the video camera (all the while tempting us mercilessly with the fabulous apparel). "Shop by Look" can be your guilty pleasure too as you watch this season’s wondrous wares come alive on the back of a winsome beauty. Once the video portion of your entertainment has ended, you may interactively click on the model to see the front, back and zoom views on any particular piece. Add items to your cart individually or pick up the entire outfit you’ve been coveting.

This cutting edge technique can be used to sell other products. It’s all based on industry standard Flash technology, already installed on over 98% of computers worldwide.

Posted by Scene7 at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In my blog last week, I included some of the findings from our recent survey – and improved customer experiences remains a key 2009 trend. The intention to invest is broad based, with both retailers and manufacturers upping their investments in visual merchandising - across content production, tools and technology. The intensified focus on the online retail experience reflects not just the desire of multi-channel retailers to increase online market share, but also their awareness that many of their consumers use their web sites for researching offline purchases. Philips is one of the best examples I’ve seen of a global manufacturer who is successfully offering an experience that supports the selling of product through both direct and in-direct selling channels. In talking to their executives, their major investments in a best-in-class online customer experience is also heavily driven by the fact that 45% of their customers’ offline purchases are now influenced by online searches conducted prior to entering any store, thereby making Philips’ web sites in 56 countries, critical to the success of its global multi-channel strategy. Philips was also able to prove that by enriching and simplifying the online shopping experience, page views per visit across all of their web properties jumped 15 percent, customer satisfaction and brand advocacy spiked and click through rocketed to an industry-leading 7%. This team is really executing on a great vision.

So, the question is, do all online products need rich media to make them successfully saleable? Do you need a dynamic zoom view of a baby bottle?

We believe that the customer experience should ideally be intuitive and visually relevant for different product categories on an e-commerce site. Not every product requires a video or alternative view or even 360-degree spin. Clearly Philips, a manufacturer of everything from shaving equipment to electronics would also agree - as depending on the product category, the site dynamically shows different visual merchandising techniques. At the baseline, however, a single high quality image – ideally with zoom – is typically core across all product lines, which then, based on the product type, can scale up to extra views, Flash animations, product finders, videos and the like. There is obviously no “one-size-fits-all” answer (even within a given website), but I am not sure I’ve run across a site yet that would not benefit from enhanced customer experience around at least a portion of their product offerings.

If you have an interesting story, learning, or perspective to share on the relative applicability of rich media to different product categories, please comment on what you’ve experienced…

Posted by Scene7 at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week, Priscilla Lawrence, our Principal Marketing Manager with Adobe Scene7, joined forces with Dayna Bateman, Senior Strategic Analyst with Fry, Inc. to enlighten 150+ attendees on the benefits of employing ecommerce best practices. The webinar was entitled “Adobe Scene7 2009 Online Customer Experience –The Next Generation Survey Results & Best Practices” and can still be experienced by emailing us and we’ll send you the link to view (and listen to) the recording.

This webinar was aimed at revealing more on the topics of rich media merchandising, social networking, mobile and personalization features – specifically focused on the ones that leading companies worldwide have deployed or plan to deploy in 2009.

Priscilla and Dayna unveiled the overall effectiveness of these topics relative to each other – drawing from a recent, quantitative survey conducted by Adobe Scene7. They also walked through live examples of best practices that support the survey findings and trends. Attendees got a first-hand look at rich internet applications, mobile device applications, social networking sites and user-generated content—all supporting better visual merchandising.

The survey found the two top-planned activities for the coming year are blogs and user ratings/comments. Consumers want to read first-hand what others are writing about a product - before they consider buying it. A consumer-contributed blog provides an even better resource for this kind of valuable information; buying decisions have become more influenced by other consumers, than ever before. Ultimately, consumers are driving the need for retailers to create an even richer content-filled experience.

Eddie Bauer’s recent launch of FirstAscent.com is a great example of a company employing today’s online best practices. The First Ascent product line of high-end outdoor gear and apparel reasserts Eddie Bauer’s mountaineering heritage. The site captures rich lifestyle imaging, zoom, videos and mouse-driven alternative images. This rich visual merchandising is coupled with a blog with video feeds to create a compelling experience where the story of summiting a mountain is at the core. The site is updated in real time, which encourages repeat visits, and spotlight pages provide consumers with an opportunity to “get to know” specific mountaineers – their accomplishments, their current ascent and their favorite gear.

Visual filtering, advanced search, lifestyle, search landing pages and zoom are merchandising components found to be deployed most often in the survey; likely because these are what rank most important to consumers. When you compare these results to last year’s survey results, three features stand out: alternate views, lifestyle images and zoom. Land’s End and Sunglass Hut are good examples of etailers extending rich media effectively beyond the product page to critical browse and search result pages. They provide all color imagery and/or alt views to give shoppers more visual information earlier on, enabling them to quickly find what they are looking for.

Over 30% of surveyed retailers claimed social networking and improved visual content were top planned features for 2009. Rating and reviews were the first of the social networking tactics that we saw online and continues to increase for 2009. Wet Seal has found a rather ingenious way of bringing the voice (and style) of the customer to their site through a community created with caution. They have developed an online Boutique and Runway for passionate customers to create and share favored outfits. Ratings (from other online shoppers) can only be marked as “love it.” There is no “hate it” and there’s no room for comments. This manages any negativity that can get out of control in online forums. As a result, the fashionista community has become very popular and has proved very beneficial for Wet Seal because those who engage in this community convert at 2X the rate of other customers.

The top-deployed mobile tactics are featured promotions that drive to store or web and GPS mapping/store locator. Consumers are looking for ease and convenience and this clearly meets that need. While mobile is still young, it bridges the gap between user and store. eBay uses text messaging as a conduit to reach customers who are outbid by other customers on auction items, Android Apps scan barcodes so that you can find an item of interest at the best possible price point, and Twitter is a prime example of a cross breeding between mobile and web; serving as a go between you and your preferred retailers and managing your text messages for you.

While personalization has been relatively flat year over year, product or visual configurators were ranked at the top as most effective. NIKEiD.com is a perfect example of best practice in this space. Consumers can create the "shoe of their dreams" from scratch. Click anywhere on the shoe and you're given "just in time" UI elements to customize the color of the laces on down to the sole. There is a task bar in the upper right corner that reveals how much more "work" is still needed to complete customization. You can enjoy photorealistic rendering in real time and create the shoes you want to wear.

If you’d like to listen to the full event and get more information on how other leading etailers are using cutting edge techniques for better merchandising, email us.

Posted by Scene7 at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It’s a jungle out there for web retailers, and one of the best survival strategies is watching what’s happening at the top of the food chain. That’s why we bring the most creative, successful web retailers to speak at our annual Adobe Scene7 Customer Experience Live event, which we held last week at Adobe offices in San Francisco.

We were proud to host presentations by three retailers – two large and one small – who lead the pack in building brand loyalty and transforming casual visitors into customers. We’ll be putting out case studies on two of them – Philips, the global electronics company, and Cloudveil, a small manufacturer of high-performance outdoor apparel – in the very near future.

For now, I want to share some of the lessons learned from a presentation by Craig Horsley, manager of site operations for JCPenney’s jcp.com. JCPenney has been in business for more than a century, but it thinking like a start-up in bringing exciting new ideas to web retailing, while also operating more than 1,000 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico. Craig is responsible for new technology on JCPenney’s jcp.com site, which draws 520,000 unique daily visitors to view a selection of 31,000 products.

In one of its first tests of Rich Interactive Applications (RIAs), jcp.com offered a “bed in a bag” product in 2006 where customers could click to see how different patterns for sheets, pillow cases and comforters looked in combination. Sales for the product line were 290 percent over plan, Craig said, helping to resolve internal skepticism regarding the value of RIAs.

Jcp.com has since added interactivity to its Window Design Center for blinds and drapes; provided 360-degree spin for products including shoes; added navigation by both product category and brand; and increased product image sizes by 50 percent.

In October 2008, jcp.com made a big push into video merchandising by launching a “Walk the Runway” feature with models showing off JCPenney clothing lines, as well as offering interviews with fashion designers.

“We let the customer shop the way they want to,” said Craig. The new features, he added, have increased “add to bag” and conversion rates. Craig concluded with his six rules for successful online retailing:

1. Listen to the customer.
2. Make shopping simple.
3. Don’t be afraid to take risks.
4. Measure, measure, measure.
5. Continue to evolve and enhance.
6. Content is king.

Success stories – such as those from Philips, Cloudveil and JCPenney – have always been my favorite way of conveying how Scene7 can help build connections between online retailers and customers. I asked our marketing team to get audience feedback, and we heard the same thing.

“It was great to see what can be done with video,” said Matt Pritchard of Smith & Hawken. “I find it exciting that Scene7 is addressing the gap between common, off-brand solutions and an expensive, custom implementation. Translating the dynamic imaging model to video content is very appealing.”

“I was impressed to see how scalable and applicable Scene7 can be for any industry,” added Charles Solla of ZipRealty. “The breadth of customers represented from consumer electronics such as Philips to JCPenney to Cloudveil clearly demonstrates that Scene7 is a service that anyone can use.”

To watch Craig’s presentation email us and we’ll send you the link to the recording.

Posted by Scene7 at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

There is no doubt that improving customer experience is a priority or at least a planned initiative for most eCommerce professionals. As I mentioned last week, hundreds of respondents to the Adobe Scene7 survey on customer experience provided feedback on features they use or plan to use and their effectiveness.

If you have run across my 'predictive' presentations or writing in the past, you may recall my eCommerce 3.0 whitepaper, which documented trends and innovations in customer experience, drawn from experience working with leading e-tailers over many years. With new technology and innovation in the marketplace, I have now expanded on these principles in a new, whitepaper – "Customer Experience, What's Best? What's Next?" – to address trends driving the next wave of online innovation, highlight unique examples of companies with leading edge implementations, and expand on best practices for differentiating your website to drive brand loyalty and repeat business over the next two to three years.

Download a copy and let me know what you think.

I am constantly in search of great new principles and supporting best practices. If you have an example that fits into one of the principles described in this paper, or perhaps an example that is driving a new one –please drop me a note in the comment section.

Posted by Scene7 at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Throughout the evolution of eCommerce one thing has remained constant - the critical importance of creating great, highly-differentiated customer experiences. With the economic downturn and eCommerce growth rates slowing to single digits worldwide, customer experience is even more important now than ever before.

My marketing team just conducted their annual online customer experience survey and released the results today. The results were fascinating to me as a record 474 people responded from around the world – a true global view on what matters. It was no surprise that the research further validated the sentiments behind my recent posting about the video revolution – podcasts and videos were among the top 5 planned features for 2009. This year's analysis expanded beyond rich media merchandising, to include detailed questions on social networking, mobile and personalization. Social networking features are clearly top of mind for most retailers in the coming year, as these features are being used as much as rich media tactics; they were also some of the most effective and highest planned for the coming year. Of the top deployed and top planned social networking features, it is no surprise that user ratings, rankings & comments were in the top 5 features in all categories of deployed, planned and most effective. Interestingly, blogs although highest in deployment and planned, were not rated nearly as effective by retailers (are you still reading?). In the rich media merchandising area, once again, zoom, lifestyle imagery, visual search and search landing pages were among most effective tactics.

Customer experience is encompassing more than just the web now, too. Mobile features are becoming closely integrated in the online experience as well. Although the adoption of mobile remains low, the use of mobile features has increased 6% from last year according to survey respondents. The highest deployed tactic in the mobile area is promotions used to drive shoppers to store or web. And with more than 3 billion mobile devices worldwide, this is an area to keep our eyes on. Sears is one of my favorite 'cross channel' examples – with buy online, pick up in store, with text notification of one's order being ready.

I think this report is well worth the read as you evaluate your customer experience strategy and tactics for 2009.  After you check out all of the data in the full report – let me know what you think. Get the full report.>

Posted by Scene7 at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you are not in a position to get a video strategy live for 2009 – what should you do? Well, there are still plenty of basics to get in place that will improve conversions. At the risk of repeating my myself, the age old adage – a picture is worth a thousand words – holds true here again. But since online shoppers want to see a product from multiple angles, or perhaps see the item in context so they can visualize how it would fit into their lifestyle, the more pictures the better. And, every image should be zoomable so people can get a closer look at the details. But how do you provide all this functionality within a cohesive, integrated interface?

Here are a few options:

Shane Co.
Shane Co.'s alternative views are displayed both on the product page and in a large popup zoom viewer. This makes it very easy to see the different images and easily zoom in on all of the views.

JD Sports
JD Sports provides great alternative views on the product page. The images become the focal point of the page with embedded full screen zoom.

SHOEBACCA.com
This site also does a nice job on the embedded only alternative views using a slider for the zoom feature. And, all alternative views are shown on clickable thumbnails rather than being triggered by a text link.

Telescope.com
Telescope.com shows it all. Not only do shoppers get alternative views, recommended zoom views, or hotspots as we like to refer to them, all views are available through an embedded viewer or through a larger modal layer view.

I mentioned this when talking about zoom, and it applies to alternative views as well… you can never provide your customers too much visual detail.

Click here if you want to learn more about Adobe Scene7 and applying alternative views to your site.

Posted by Scene7 at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Over the past year, as I’ve spoken at various industry events and trade shows, I’ve felt very ‘lonely’ as I have evangelized the power (and potential) for video in eCommerce. There are two key things that have fueled this belief for me. First, as part of Adobe, I have seen the voracious consumer appetite for web video outside eCommerce - largely media and social networking sites. comScore has been tracking this growth throughout 2008 – noting that in July, 134 million Americans watched 11.4 billion videos… or more than 2 videos per user, per day. This represented 75% of the US Internet population watching video! 6.5 million Americans also watched mobile video in August. comScore’s data shows this isn’t a US-only phenomenon either – more than 25 million people in France watched more than 2 billion videos in September… 26 million Germans watched 219 million hours of web video in August (118 videos per viewer)… and 27 million people in the UK watched more than 3 billion videos in August. Consumers love web video – a lot. Second, through my Scene7 imaging experience, I’ve learned the old adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ rings very true in eCommerce. So what is a moving picture (a.k.a. video) worth?

It is obvious how video benefits ‘hardgoods’ categories ala appliances and consumer electronics to demonstrate and review a product; but can video help in any category? I am starting to conclude that it can. One of my favorite videos is on the Littlewoods UK site – a major player in the apparel market. They are an early innovator in video and have gotten ahead of the pack in eCommerce – I think they have more than 1,500 videos at this point, maybe more, many of which they’ve invested to produce themselves. So, check out this video on Littlewoods.com.

Every time I watch this video, I go back to the product page and feel like it pales in comparison to the ‘selling’ that happens in the video. First, the spokesperson has a great personality to convey the ‘fun’ of the brand – and she is very crafty in conveying the utility of the dress, the types of occasions one would wear it, how it would fit, what body types would benefit, etc. It is nearly impossible to get all that information across – in a mere 30 seconds – in any other format. And, did I mention consumers prefer watching video to start off with…?

Not into dresses? If you are a skiing enthusiast – watch this Cloudveil video. The clip shows extreme skiing interspersed with demos of key product features (entertainment and selling). These videos were all internally produced, keeping the quality high but production costs low. I used to think you had to keep your clip under a minute – but when it comes to talking to a targeted audience – in this case, skiing enthusiasts – three minutes of content actually works quite nicely.

Clearly, our industry (eCommerce) has really lagged this consumer trend (opportunity). I’ve been a bit surprised not to see more progress sooner as leading etailers look for the next big conversion and customer experience opportunity. However, I picked up on a research study from eMarketer yesterday that made me think “perhaps the revolution is finally underway.” eMarketer surveyed retailer intentions on new innovations – and adding “video or streaming media” has flown to the top of the list – even ahead of some real stalwarts like reviews and improved search! It would appear those retailers who have been dabbling in video – now have religion – and a strong intention to really make this ‘the next big thing’ to better serve their customers. The link to the study: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006883

This move from "dabbling" to "top intended new capability" is exciting for the industry and the consumer. By no coincidence – with my strong belief in video – we at Adobe Scene7 will play a major role to enable (and ease the implementation of) the video revolution in eCommerce. Coincidental with the eMarketer release, we put out this announcement yesterday ourselves: http://www.scene7.com/news/2009/20090126.asp

As Adobe has established a great standard in web video with Flash video – delivering a very elegant and high quality experience for the consumer - and as Scene7 has similarly become the de facto platform for publishing and delivery of images to eCommerce sites, this very much felt like one of those ‘peanut butter meets chocolate’ moments when we became part of Adobe in 2007 and put together our joint product plans to add Flash video publishing. It is really something seeing it all come to reality with consumers, retailers and suppliers all converging on this great opportunity. I can’t wait to watch more moving pictures.

As you think about your video strategy, drop me questions in the comment box and I’ll either respond in the comments or email you back.

Posted by Scene7 at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Whether shopping in person or online, people want to take a closer look before purchasing a product. For online retailers, the Zoom feature is critical. But what’s the best way to let your customers zoom? How do you provide the necessary level of detail while maximizing screen real estate and doing it all with an intuitive user interface?

1. Pop-up window
Wine Enthusiast offers zoom in a pop-up viewer that allows shoppers to click for a larger view with even greater detail than what is initially shown in the product page.

2. Embedded viewer
Under Armour uses an embedded zoom view that fills the width of the product page, providing a much better experience than any printed catalog and most online stores.

3. Modal layer
Patagonia opts to open a modal layer in the same browser window, rather than opening a new popup window. With this approach, you don’t have to worry about popup blocking.

4. Fly over zoom
Levi Strauss & Co. uses a unique approach, allowing shoppers to drag a magnifier over the main image to display a corresponding zoomed view. This gives you the level of detail you need while still keeping the entire product in view.

5. Combo
Crate and Barrel gives shoppers a choice by providing a combination of the embedded zoom viewer with a larger modal layer zoom.

Whichever method you choose to implement on your site, remember to make sure your master image is large enough to provide the level of detail that shoppers need to make a decision. And if using a pop-up, make sure your popup view window is always significantly larger than your product view size. One thing I’ve learned that applies to nearly every company and every product – you can literally never make your image big enough for your customers… and you can never provide them too much detail.

Click here if you want to learn more about Adobe Scene7 and applying zoom to your site.

Posted by Scene7 at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)