Social features for internet retailers
At Sewell (an internet retailer of computer hardware, for those of you who don’t know), we have experimented with a few things over the past few years. We have tried showing in-stock quantities, 360 degree views (see the Phoebus, next to enlarge image), a support blog, a tech forum and more.
Like all most companies we just want to find the most ways to make our customers happy without losing money in the process. Recently we rolled out some features that I think really raise the bar for us and internet retailers - specifically, customer reviews (pretty common) and a product-specific Q&A’s for each individual product. (To see an example of the new features check out the USB to DVI - you will see a few extra tabs under the product image).
Most pure-play internet retailers claim to understand the value of social features - specifically in the context of leveraging 3′rd party sites, such as Facebook and Digg. What confuses me is why more don’t try to incorporate social features on their own site - giving shoppers the ability to communicate questions, answers and thoughts to other shoppers provides SEO benefits, lowers support costs, boost conversion rates, etc.
The only conclusion that I can draw is that most retailers don’t have the technical ability to customize their sites. My prediction is that a shopping cart provider will bridge that gap soon - having tried quite a few shopping carts out I can tell you with a pretty high degree of confidence that there is nothing available for a small business right now that is easy to use and will provide these benefits.
The expenses of incorporating social features on a website are the kind of expenses retailers should be looking for - fixed costs that provide residual benefits. If the marginal costs of maintaining the features (moderation, etc.) exceeds the marginal benefit, it obviously makes no sense to maintain - my guess would be that this would be rare for a retailer.
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Great article - exactly the same findings we made with our internet shop for plants www.lubera.ch. Customers can ask questions on the product page and the question and answer will be published there. Moreover customers are also encouraged to upload pictures of the plants in their own gardens - we have good experiences so far.
Comment by Sascha Hertli — March 23, 2008 @ 8:34 am
Technology supplier search engine Conjungo has been launched to help ease search times for companies looking for suppliers of technologies. Conjungo is the only place online where technology vendors can list their entire channel in an easily searchable format. This helps buyers find local or specialist resellers. http://www.conjungo.com
Comment by qqqq — April 1, 2008 @ 10:06 am
Sascha - I don’t understand much of the content since it’s in a different language but I was wondering how long you have been doing it for? Have you experienced more sales because of the social features?
Comment by admin — April 2, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
you aint nuthin’ but a social “tat”. (with a ‘puddy’ in front)
Comment by Sylvester — April 7, 2008 @ 1:56 pm