As Broadband penetration increases, retailers are using video more and more to engage their customers. 2D images are so yesterday and rich copy is sometimes not enough. Video can be used to better show customers product features or benefits, which in turn increases conversion rates. This could be live product demonstrations, streamed pre-recorded product demos, user generated product demos etc The good news is that video is becoming far more accessible and cheaper to produce.
I got an interesting response to an earlier blog post from a chap (Tom McLelland) who has developed a live video operator platform that allows customer to see the sales rep, talk to the sales rep and even request the sales rep do a live product demo. The live product demo is reminiscent of Subversive Chicken (without the vop) but Tom has seen an impressive upswing in conversion rates and a considerable drop in returns. The concept is a good one.
There is much to be said about the convenience of shopping online but customers need to feel or examine certain products and customers feel that most retailers fall way below the mark on this. With 15p in every retail pound being spent online, overcoming the customer’s need to feel is an enormous challenge faced by retailers in the fight for a slice of the online retail pie.
Scene7 offers a rich toolkit for image manipulation such as zoom, texture swatching, 360 degree spin, integrated viewing etc they also offer e-videos for customers to view product demonstrations.
Research shows that customers who watch a video of a product demonstration have a greater propensity to buy. On their site Scene7 claim ‘up to 15% increases in conversion rates using eVideo’. Scene7 are only too aware of the power of video.
Some examples of video demos includes http://www.comettv.co.uk/, http://www.knickerpicker.com, http://www.smarter.com See this video demo of the itouch on smarter.com for a good example of user generated video from real consumers. There are plenty of further examples out there but I’ll leave you guys to add them in the comments.
As part of our brainstorm session (date to be confirmed) around giving the consumer confidence we’ll be generating fresh concepts for harnessing the powers of video to create a shopping environment which both engages and goes some way to overcoming the online barriers to purchasing – with of course the ultimate aim to boost online sales.
P.S. Conchango are recruiting! If any of my ramblings interest you and you are passionate about User Experience the we'd like to hear from you. Why not contact me and let's have a chat?
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