Our thinking

Step into middle England’s best loved department store, stroll through haberdashery to the audio visual department where an awfully well brought-up young man will bend over backwards to find the right TV for you - then go to dixons.co.uk and buy it.

The text above, one of a recent series of advertising messages by Dixons won’t come as a surprise to those of us at Webcredible who’ve been through countless usability testing sessions with ecommerce websites. Especially when purchasing large, high-value goods or goods where design is an important factor, customers are right to want to “try before they buy”. And this often means browsing the high street, coming up with a shortlist of products and then looking for the cheapest price online.

Dixons’ campaign hasn’t gone without a reply from some of their high street competitors, who rightly point out that Dixons doesn’t even sell many of the upmarket products found in high street stores. And does Dixons really want to highlight that their competitors can provide better advice than they do?

So, apart from creative advertising, what can online retailers do to make consumers more confident to buy online without browsing through the high street? Here’s some tips:

• Showcase the product online from as many angles as possible. ‘Catwalk’ videos for clothes and demo videos or 360° views for gadgets can replicate (to some extent) the experience of seeing a product up close.
• Add product reviews and, even better, Q&As with your expert staff. If customers can ask you a question and get a satifactory reply (or even find that their question has been already answered) then they’re more likely to buy without seeking advice from your competitors.
• Put a generous returns policy in place, and let your customers know. If customers know they can easily return a product they don’t like, they’ll be happier to checkout even when they’re not 100% sure about their purchase. On the other hand, if they get stuck with a product they don’t like they’re less likely to come back.

In our e-commerce usability report, due out next week, we’ve seen that some sites do better than others in helping consumers pick a product. How well does your site perform in this area?

P.S. Come meet us in Ecommerce Expo at Earls Court, 20-21 October.

Photo credit:  Indiana Stan via Flickr / Creative commons

Jon and I attended the IMRG workshop on interactive marketing yesterday. We really enjoyed the session and like all IMRG events we met some great new people there, as well as old friends.

One particularly interesting topic of discussion was on the use of digital video as part of the online retail experience. There were good points made by a number of delegates about how video can support brand building and marketing efforts as part of an interactive campaign. I’ve previously blogged about video content on YouTube so I won’t make that point here.

Video content production can be an expensive business so if you’re seriously considering putting video into your retail journey you need to be sure it’s going to give you the return you need.

So, under what circumstances is it optimal to support your customers with video?

In my opinion the best way to work out where in the journey your videos should sit is by examining your customers’ decision-making and discovery process across multiple channels. Videos could be used to provide rich insights at the point when people are scouting around looking at competitior products, trying to understand what features and capabilities they’d like in their new purchase. The kind of product videos that add a great deal of value are the ones that really use the medium to full effect.

For example, videos of expensive, technical products could support customers to answer some preliminary questions about the tactile qualities or usability of a product such as a mobile handset or a digital camera. Apple successfully (and some might say controversially) used product videos of their iPhone across multiple channels to educate would be customers about the user experience of their product. So, there’s a good chance that customers will be visiting your bricks and mortar store to get a feel for the product for themselves and seek some expert advice from your staff. But if you’re a pureplay digital e-tailer then this might not be possible.

So, given the cost involved in producing high quality videos how would you decide which products are worth investing in?