'Net Features : Sears

Videos Impact Conversions, Revenue

Amberly Dressler — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:08:00 GMT

On-site videos deliver brand awareness and engagement, but what is most appealing to companies is the performance and financial impact videos are generating, specifically conversions and revenue.

That’s according to SundaySky, the creator of SmartVideo (a personalized, real-time video experience). The company recently published its 2012 State of Online Video report, which captures and analyzes the current trends in online video including consumption, personalization, advertising, retail, mobile and 2013 predictions.

Highlights of the report include:

• Personally relevant video: While the average email click-through rate is 5.4 percent, Forrester confirms email with video increases this rate 11-16 percent

• Video advertising market growth: Forrester predicts the online video spend will grow 26 percent each year

• Mobile video: 33 percent of marketers could use mobile video to replace the traditional 30-second spot

• Online retail: The number of online retailers that feature videos on their websites is up 200 percent from last year

Also interesting to note, is video’s impact on email. The report indicates that the average text email open rate is 11 to 22 percent, but when you add ‘video’ to the subject line of marketing-related emails, open rates rise up to 30 percent.

SundaySky data also reveals that when customer emails contain video content that is personally relevant to the recipient, such as a bill, statement or account status - open rates jump to 40-60 percent. Furthermore, the click-to-play rate for personalized video ranges from 80 to 99 percent.

Personalized content clearly goes a long way in driving deeper levels of customer engagement.

“We all, as consumers, want to be treated like individuals more and more,” said Sears CTO Dr. Phil Shelley. “We want to personalize engagement, including real-time offers and rewards.”

In addition to using SundaySky’s Smart Video product for showcasing products, Sears also leverages a big data program to drive customer loyalty.

Other retailers have also seen video’s impact on their bottom line. In fact, 48 of the top 50 online retailers feature videos on their website. This is a 200 percent increase from 2011. Higher conversion rates are likely the reason.

“Five percent of consumers who get to the configuration stage and view one of these videos makes a purchase, tripling the conversion rate from before we implemented,” said Lewis Broadnax, Executive Director, Web Sales & Marketing, Lenovo.

Looking forward to 2013, SundaySky predicts the C-suite enhancing customer experience and engagement strategies with smarter applications of videos. Naturally, the company also anticipates the continued rapid growth of digital and mobile video consumption and ad views.

Sears and ChannelAdvisor

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:00:00 GMT

ChannelAdvisor announced today that will allow ChannelAdvisor customers to use the Sears Third-party Marketplace. The program will be offered on a fully managed basis for now but plans exist to broaden the scope of the current integration in the future.

“We have enjoyed early success selling our products on the Sears Marketplace platform,” said Nathan Gordan, CIO of Christmas Central. “ChannelAdvisor’s support announcement will enable us to consolidate our Sears activity with the rest of our e-commerce efforts on ChannelAdvisor’s platform, and the automation capability will save us staff time and resources.”

For those unfamiliar with ChannelAdvisor, it is a software provider that helps retailers sell online through channels such as marketplaces, paid search and comparison shopping, and with webstores and rich media solutions. Retailer submit one inventory feed to the ChannelAdvisor platform which is then translated to fit th specifications of different e-commerce channels and distributed.

Sears Expands Local Marketplace for Merchants

Linc Wonham — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:30:00 GMT

Merchants in the New York City, Washington D.C., Boston and Chicago areas will have an opportunity to sell products through Sears.com’s Local Marketplace, the retailer has announced. Partners in the program will have the ability to offer customers same-day or next-day pickup on items ordered from their own storefront locations, Sears or K-mart locations, or even through home delivery.

Sears has added a new tab to its Web page that gives shoppers quick access to information on products that are available for local delivery or pick-up. The tab lets visitors classify the urgency of the products they’re looking for with “Now”, “Later today”, “Tomorrow” or “Anytime” designations, and then directs the shoppers to enter their zip codes to find out which of those items are available locally. Consumers can already find food and groceries, beauty products, baby and kids items and pet supplies in the Local Marketplace, and Sears anticipates adding more categories in the future.

Sears is adding all new retailers in its traditional marketplace to the local program. Those new retailers must only designate verifiable pick-up locations and provide accurate product inventory data before Sears adds those products to the Local Marketplace.