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August 29 2008
IR's Weekend Web Crawl: Video and social features to the fore
If any more proof was needed that Christmas is coming up the home straight, the number of new site launches and complete redesigns that have gone live this week should do the trick. Key trends to take a look at on this week's IR Weekend Web Crawl? More video, more brands with their own transactional websites plus lots and lots of social shopping...
This week's IR Weekend Web Crawl includes a look at the new websites of two major fashion brands, at a lot of video and several different approaches to social commerce and web 2.0.
Our first stops are at two major brands, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren's Rugby label, both of whom have launched their very first ecommerce sites this week. Both are, of course, extremely stylish and the Rugby site in particular uses a lot of video and has a really good product personalization feature that is prominently promoted on the home page.
In the US, both bookseller Barnes & Noble and shoe retailer Shoeline.com are reporting excellent results from the addition of video to their sites and are worth taking a look at. Shoeline says it is expanding its use of video after it saw conversions 44% higher on the products that had video compared with the rest of its range. Barnes & Noble is to add more series to its online tv studio concept first launched six months ago.
Still in the US, it's increasingly clear that social shopping features are becoming the norm that every new site or redesign includes rather than being something for the daring few. A strong new trend this week is for specialist retailers to look at building elements of social networking into their sites. GanderMtn.com, for example, has a bragging board where customers can upload photos of their latest hunting or fishing success, Vitamin Shoppe has introduced an online message board service that lets customers communicate with each other and with experts who can provide health, wellness and sports nutrition advice and Amazon has snapped up Shelfari, a social network for book lover.
Closer to home, Quiksilver-owned female surf brand Roxy has also got it's first ecommerce site this week, French Connection has revamped its site and Nationwide Autocentres has made an extremely high quality attempt at helping the nation's motorists manage all their car servicing and maintenance online.
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