E-commerce website: Use creativity to defeat depression (on)

The U.S. e-commerce market is one of the most developed in the world, analysis of the U.S. online retail website in 2009 How it is a very interesting topic, because it is likely that some of the current from the U.S. electricity market summed up the trend and experience will be reproduced in the Chinese market. Recently saw a dedicated online retail web site analysis of the company launched the 2010 version of the U.S. online retail website 100 Strong list, I will be here to translate its content translation and then to do a topic, I believe that the domestic electrical business practitioners are helpful, but also welcomed the letter or message discussion:

Use creativity to defeat depression

At the beginning of 2009, as the overall economic situation in the United States worsened, shoppers ' spending power naturally declined, but as we can see from the top 100 list of the selected retail sites, these businesses have come up with all kinds of innovations to make the website shoppers more loyal and healthier. This may be due to the harsh environment in which they were raised.

Many retail sites focus on user interaction, including the ability to add ratings reviews, build blog posts with more information, or ask and answer functions, while others are more actively communicating with users on SNS, such as Facebook and Twitter. Some sites will be more intuitive navigation in the station, and some sites rely on membership system sales and daily specials and other means to attract users. In addition, many retail sites have also begun to focus on mobile channels, indicating that users are indeed increasingly starting to use the hands of the more powerful mobile phones to shopping.

We have summed up the following 10 lessons from the successful innovation of the 100 major retail websites this year:

• (i) Real and shoppers "mingle"

This should be the most obvious trend of this year's retail web site, as the CEO of a retail website specialising in footwear said, "The importance of social networking has become part of our corporate culture, just as it has become an indispensable part of our user life." ”

Our 2010 online retail blockbuster is not simply a Facebook and Twitter page to prop up the façade, but rather makes the effort to make the user actively think about accessing the pages. For example, the teen clothing brand, Forever21, has attracted more than 510,000 fans on its Facebook page, where brand supporters can see the latest outfits and score and share them, along with interesting games, lots of pictures and lively forum discussions.

figure I: Forever21 's Facebook page, you can see a lot of work in detail, such as the words and tones used by the page operators to fit the target user base.

Figure II: users can upload pictures of wearing branded clothing for other fans to score, or comment on the new product (the value of this information is priceless to the fashion business, and the colleagues who have read the classic MBA case Zara should have experience)

Many retail sites also add more community interaction features to their own sites, such as Backcountry.com to send bonus points for each user who uses a real name for a comment.

• (b) provide mobile shopping channels

Although the effects of the recession still exist, many retail websites decided in 2009 to start a certain tilt to the mobile shopping crowd. There are now more than 100 retail websites that have supported the mobile shopping experience, and the trend has accelerated significantly in the second half of 09. Just the ebay family estimates that about 500 million dollars of sales will come from the handset side this year.

These retail sites are also starting to use mobile features to provide special services, such as Sears's mobile shopping app, which pushes local exclusive offers to users based on their built-in location-based services, and Amazon, for example, uses the feature that basically all phones now have built-in cameras, Allow users in the physical store (or other offline scenes) to easily take a picture of the product they want to use on their mobile phone, in addition to saving this image to the app and Amazon as a reminder, Amazon will also try to compare the sales from the Web site, If there is a suitable will lead the user to buy.

Figure III: Amazon's iphone app contains the "Amazon remembers" three-step feature introduction

• (iii) Providing professional advice to users

As large shopping malls that are regulated and institutionalized manage to occupy the market, shoppers are getting less specialized advice to shop online, and some smart, online retail sites are starting to fill in the blanks for shoppers.

For example, Vandykes.com allows the user to enter the spacing of the screw holes to replace the handle for the home cabinet; on the website of the women's sportswear brand title nine, in addition to the traditional user reviews, a variety of body testers were recruited to rank the chest support for each of the sports bust.

In the retail website Department of Fashion brand Net-A-Porter.com, employees will carefully try on each of the sales of clothing, and then each detail is clearly professionally reflected in the Product Details page; giggle.com will provide a full range of 10 factors, including safety and allergy considerations, for customers who want to buy children's products. It is these professional recommendations that make these retail sites stand out.

Figure IV:"The giggle criteria" with 10 different colors of the letter icon for each item easy to read the label, stressed that the sale of children's products have been specifically for parents in accordance with strict professional advice after screening, you can be assured to buy.

The remaining 7 2010 U.S. retail website 100 Strong Creative summary will be finished in the near future, thank you!