Note from the Video Commerce Summit
I’m at the Video Commerce Summit in Seattle today. Big props to the Liveclicker.com team for putting together a great event. And many thanks to the panelists on the session I moderated — Peter Cobb of eBags, Jimmy Healey from OnlineShoes.com, and Craig Bokesch from Altrec.com.
It’s been a packed day with lots of insights. My seat-neighbor (Jordan from REI) commented that this conference feels a bit like an eCommerce conference in 1997 — very true. These are early days and the early adopters are experimenting all over the place. Results seem universally positive, often shockingly profitable.
Surprisingly, there’s a lot of negativity about YouTube as a distribution channel. Craig from Altrec commented that Google’s Universal Search can cause your YouTube videos to rank higher than your own product pages — which sucks because YouTube offers no good way to funnel traffic to your site. The consensus is that YouTube has marginal utility for the online retailer.
Filed under: effective online video
Hi Raj,
I love your blog here and it was great seeing you in Seattle the other week at the video commerce summit. I saw your post here about what REI said as well as your tweet on it. I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that it seemed like 1997, but I’d like to think it’s a good thing! There is just so much opportunity out there with video and retail. The market is still early and everyone is still learning, both on the client and vendor side. I agree with you that most people doing video are profiting from it and that it’s becoming more of a key merchandising method. What’s really interesting to me though is the syndication aspect – syndicating not only on the retail site but also off the site, and watching video become a greater driver of success in other channels.
I personally still have a lot to learn about what makes certain videos work while others aren’t as successful. Any knowledge you could share on your blog with regard to what retailers can do to make video perform more successfully would be welcome, purely from a content perspective. For example, what types of products do well with voiceovers? What should the talent consider when showing off different types of products? What impact does adding music have? Do you agree or disagree that less produced video can drive the same results as better produced video? Or is it less about the results and more about how the brand wants to present itself online? I know there are a million different situations and examples that are probably contradictory, but I’d be interested in any of your observations there.
Thanks Raj,
Justin