In today’s Wall Street Journal, Joanna Ossinger reports that

“online retailers and shopping-information sites are starting to figure out how to use videos to draw visitors to their sites and help propel sales.”

QVC.com, the online store for home-shopping channel QVC, is naturally one of the pioneers of online retail video. Senior VP Bob Myers notes in the article that:

QVC gets a “significantly higher conversion rate” for products it shows in videos.

So why isn’t everyone putting product video on their websites? As the article notes, cost is a major issue. Video production houses typically charge $5,000 (or more) per minute of finished video — before the costs of putting it online.

Ossinger’s article is a great overview of “the state of online retail video” — it’s a must-read for Internet retailers. The article is available online (if you’re a subscriber), or you can email us for a reprint.

Filed under: online retail, strategy, video