CommerceVideos.com

Cabela’s is the largest mail order, Internet, and retail outdoor outfitter in the world.  The company’s direct division, which includes the web, generated $1.1 billion in revenues in 2008, while visits to Cabelas.com increased 32% year-over-year.  Cabela’s can claim bragging rights as the most-visited e-commerce site in the sporting goods category for 2008, and it is currently perched at #40 on the Internet Retailer Top 500 List (2009 ranking).  From the outside, it looks like the company is firing on all cylinders.

Video seems to be a natural fit for Cabela’s.  After all, the company has focused on delivering innovative experiences to shoppers through its ‘destination’ stores which were expanded aggressively in the 2000’s, and by sending out nearly 100 catalogs each year to hunters, fishermen, and outdoor enthusiasts of all types.  As the company grew, it also began to expand into media with the launch of Cabela’s Outfitter Journal and Cabela’s Television.   Today, the company now features a collection of roughly 250 videos on its web site, Cabelas.com [in addition to its TV shows].

Cabela’s aggressive push into new media is admirable. Of the videos it features on-site, most appear to be product-related from its “Field Clips” series, but there are a good number of how-to videos on the site as well.  The videos are professionally shot, most appear to be on location, and the on-screen talent was polished and well-rehearsed in the videos I watched.  It did appear Cabela’s might be using some manufacturer video content as well, then layering in their own intros and outros, but it was a little difficult to tell for certain – they all might have been Cabela’s-produced.  The post-production work was also great.  Shots transitioned nicely and fancy graphics spruced up some of the product videos, which was a nice touch.  The product videos for the most part were 30 – 60 seconds in length (some were longer) and the how-to videos I watched were longer on average, in the 2 – 4 minute range.  In addition, I suspect Cabela’s is tapping into co-op opportunities with videos like this how-to video featuring Purina dog experts which is interesting to note only because co-op is a primary strategy behind how many online retailers are funding their video production efforts, based only on my own observations.

So it’s undeniable that Cabela’s understands video production, that they ‘get’ some of the opportunity to take video online (and presumably how to fund it).  In addition, it’s clear they’re busy exploiting different types of video content both to sell products and educate their customers.  All of this puts Cabela’s well ahead of most retailers in terms of having a solid video commerce program.

So why would I say they fall flat on web execution, given how far ahead they are on the production side?

For starters, Cabela’s is using Windows Media Video format for their videos.  On a brand new computer running Vista, I couldn’t watch the videos without downloading a plug-in.  I use Firefox (not that it should matter, as 22% of Internet users do also), but the problem also reared its ugly head running Internet Explorer 8.  That’s right – a new computer running Vista and IE 8 could not render Cabela’s videos. What’s the point in spending all the time and money on creating video content for viewing online when end users can’t even watch the videos?

I can’t really see any way the decision to use Windows Media Video (instead of Flash, which is installed on >98% of web browsers) is helpful to Cabela’s.  In addition to the poor user experience, engagement analytics aren’t available, and what about everyone using Macs?

One area where Cabela’s is doing well though is in placing videos on product pages.  Placing videos on product pages is a proven method to increase conversion rates (not that it matters if no one can watch the video).  Cabela’s designates  video is available on the product page through a video camera icon, which makes sense as a product page trigger. The product page treatment is more aggressive than the one I last profiled on B&H’s site, for example.  Unfortunately, the video callout is still below the fold (see below) – a more effective treatment might be to move it directly under the hero image.

Cabela’s also features their video collection on-site in one central location, which is great.  It’s a handy way of browsing all the videos available from one spot.  There’s only one problem – finding the video collection is nearly impossible.  For those of you young enough (or old enough) to remember, the “Where’s Waldo?” books are an apt analogy.  A user has to first click on the “Outdoor Info” tab, then the word “Product Videos” is buried in a nondescript left sidebar text nav, which links to the video collection.  The built-in site search isn’t any help.  Despite the fact that video is the most searched for media online, searching for the word “Videos” when the site search is pre-selected to ‘articles and information’ (the section one might logically assume contains the videos), nothing of use is returned.

A third area where Cabela’s does well in video execution is in placing how-to videos on category level pages.  For example, check out the how-to video link in the right nav of this category page for “Black Powder.”  Category page videos are a great way to build trust into the shopping experience and provide differentiation when stacking up to competitors.

The SEO + video department appears a little behind at Cabelas.com.  Of the 15 searches I performed on the product name plus the word “video,” only one returned Cabelas.com on the first page of results in Google, and that was for a Cabela’s branded product and the result was for the generic video page on Cabelas.com.  More typical was a result like this one, where Cabelas was beaten out by competitors like Walmart.com and shopping portals for specialty products in the outdoors segment where Cabela’s should be more of a shoe-in.  Cabela’s appeared not to be following many video + SEO best practices at all, which might explain the poor showing.  For example:

• Videos were launched from Javascript (this is sometimes the only way to do it efficiently from product pages, but for video pages, a better practice would be to display the video in-browser, one per page)
• No meta descriptions and keywords calling out the product or nature of the video
• No use of H1 header tags to describe the videos
• No ability to download the video (this can aid with indexing)
• No mRSS feed available for the videos
• No descriptive text on the page where the video played
• No transcriptions supporting the video
• No permalinks
• No interactive links in video content
• Limited (if any) video syndication

Related not only to SEO but also in driving traffic to Cabelas.com, I wasn’t able to find evidence of Cabela’s initiated video syndication.  I searched for 10 videos on YouTube for products Cabela’s featured with video on their site, and couldn’t find any that appeared to be uploaded by Cabela’s even though there are a ton of videos on YouTube that feature Cabela’s.  Also of interest, it appears that Cabela’s is advertsing in YouTube’s new click-to-buy program. I couldn’t find a Cabela’s YouTube channel, though. (If you know if Cabela’s has a channel, please comment below and I’ll update this post).  One thing of note, I did see a user generated video featuring a Cabela’s product that featured a competitor’s overlay ad, which serves to emphasize a possible downside to hosting videos on YouTube:

Syndication of video represents another opportunity for SEO if you’re smart with embedded links on YouTube, provide useful descriptions of video content, and allow commenting.  However, syndication to YouTube, if not carefully monitored, can actually cannibalize on-site video SEO, as noted by Craig Bokesch of Altrec.com at last week’s video commerce summit.  I searched other video services for Cabela’s video (Vimeo, Google Video, Yahoo Video) but couldn’t find syndicated Cabela’s videos – looks like another missed opportunity for Cabela’s.

While the choice of Windows Media Video as a standard format and real lack of instituted video SEO best practices make succeeding with video more difficult, there are other untapped opportunities for Cabela’s.   For example, Cabela’s doesn’t appear to offer their videos to their affiliates, which is a shame given there’s so much content on the web around the ‘outdoors lifestyle’ – so this is yet another opportunity missed by Cabela’s in their online video effort.  Cabela’s also hasn’t featured any videos embedded in their emails that I’ve received (video GIF support in across popular email clients represents an opportunity to increase email marketing campaign results and Goodmail’s CertifiedVideo service now allows delivery of full motion video with audio to AOL).

Last, Cabela’s appears to have completely bypassed the intersection of video and social media.  Even though folks are creating their own videos about Cabela’s products and new research shows video sharing is more than popular than ever across demographics, Cabela’s offers their customers and viewers no options to share their videos to social networks, embed them on blogs, post them to Twitter, etc.  Another opportunity missed to engage with shoppers and gain additional site traffic without paying out a CPC or CPA.  Then again, given the choice of WMV as the underlying technology powering the Cabela’s video program as opposed to Flash, sharing would be pretty useless, anyway.

In all, Cabela’s has built a strong foundation for a video commerce program with a massive and growing library of video content which includes a robust collection of both product videos and how-to videos, not to mention the company’s TV efforts.  In addition, the company seems to take video seriously, as noted earlier when awarding props to the high quality of talent and video production.  The company seems to understand some of the basics behind a revenue generating video program (merchandising/educating on product pages, educating on category pages, leveraging co-op) but they’re missing the boat with off-site video (syndication, SEO, email, affiliates, social media) and are crippled by some technology decisions that would make expansion difficult (choosing Windows Media over Flash).  It will be interesting to watch Cabela’s video program evolve over the year.

B&H Photo/Video has managed to carve out a nice space for itself in the world of online electronics retailing by catering to a specific niche: higher end photographers and videographers seeking a deeper level of product expertise, solid value, and a convenient online shopping experience.   What makes B&H remarkable when it comes to video commerce, however, is that they extend their video expertise to actual video production; the company invested in an in-house video production team that shoots videos featured on http://www.video.bhphotovideo.com and product pages on the e-commerce site.  They also appear to have devoted significant in-house technical resources to support the program with custom player development and other functionality.  As with other consumer electronics retailers like CompUSA and Buy.com that have launched ‘video channel’ initiatives, B&H realized that video plays well when explaining the numerous features and benefits of gadgets and equipment that are often complex and also expensive.  Unlike CompUSA and Buy.com, however, the B&H approach is less entertainment centered and more education-oriented.  They’ve created the B&H video site as a way to feature their library of features & benefits video, with a host explaining the features on-camera.

I’ve got to give B&H props for how far along they are with video compared to most online retailers – below is just a short list of what they’ve managed to accomplish:

- Invested in in-house video producers, creating quality video content with polished post-production work evident through integrated product shots and host shots.

- Featuring access to B&H videos above the fold on the company’s HOME page – not insignificant

- Placing links to view videos/demos on their product pages

- Providing some basic syndication options for consumers

- They’ve even created their own custom player that features low/high bandwidth modes, full screen options, and simple standard player controls.  B&H also features email video sharing (static product image in the email), social bookmarking, and a simple navigation and video search that lets viewers quickly find the videos they’re looking for on-site.

- Additionally, B&H appears to be doing a great job with their video SEO.  A quick search on a few of the products featured on their video site featured first page Google results when the word “videos” was appended to the product name.  They use descriptive meta keywords & descriptions, offer a video download option, support mRSS feeds, create descriptive page titles, feature the video site under their own domain “bhphotovideo.com,” and also feature one video per page.  Doesn’t look like they’re using permalinks right now or featuring keyword-rich video transcripts, but on the whole they seem to have their act together when it comes to some of the more important video SEO best practices and based on a few searches this approach seems to be working for them.

- B&H has also come on board with video syndication, at least in a limited way.  They are putting their videos on YouTube, for example.

The biggest beef I have with the B&H video site initiative is that it doesn’t really seem to serve the larger e-commerce mission of the site.  In a recession and with video under pressure like any other marketing initiative, especially in the consumer electronics industry where there has been heavy pullback on consumer spending for many retailers, it’s no longer enough to create a video destination site for SEO purposes or a ‘video channel’ where consumers can ‘browse’ the video library.  In this regard and in some areas, B&H has a way to go.  For example:

- Links to the product page are featured to the right of the video player and aren’t really noticeable – I had to hunt to find the link.  The link also doesn’t state that clicking will take the user to a product page – it just provides the name of the product – the call to action could be clearer.

- B&H is probably missing an opportunity to create engagement with their videos by completely bypassing player interactivity.  There aren’t any clear calls to action shown in-video that would promote e-commerce – for example by linking to a product page, and definitely no contextual merchandising, in-video sharing, or hotspotting (though I question the value of hotspots anyway without clear calls to action).  I’m a big fan of using strong calls to action at appropriate ‘trigger’ points in-video to drive the desired behavior; creating the call to action outside the video forces the viewer to divert their attention from the video to engage.

- They don’t appear to have extended video to their email program, and it’s unclear as to how much of the program (if any) is available for affiliate marketing – no matter, without both, the video program appears limited beyond their site and video site.

- The social bookmarking options are limiting as well.  For example, the most prominent social networks (Facebook and MySpace) aren’t available for video sharing, nor is Twitter.

- The product page implementation is definitely not featuring video in any kind of prominent way.  The shopper has to hunt to even see that a video is available for a product.  The option is hidden below the hero image, and a strange looking icon appears next to ‘view demo’ (is that an eyeball?  a webcam?)  I doubt B&H is seeing the full benefit of product page lift given such a light treatment, which clearly is ignoring one of the most immediate opportunities to generate more revenue from video in the short term.

- I also encountered issues twice on two separate machines [running Firefox 3.0.10] where the video didn’t load on the first try when the view demo button was clicked on the product page and had to be reloaded.  It did reload the second time on both machines.

- I don’t really ‘get’ the idea of a podcast for product videos like the ones B&H is creating.  And the concept of a ‘playlist’ on the video site?  Do people really want to create a playlist of product videos?  Maybe – if they’re comparing two similar products I suppose.  It seems like a bit of a stretch.

- B&H also doesn’t appear to have an automated way of managing their video syndication to YouTube.  For example, click the link in the “more info” section at the upper right of this YouTube video featuring a product for sale on B&H’s site.  I get a 404 error but am guessing B&H is trying to link to their video site.

- I checked for other syndication other than YouTube for a couple of products, but wasn’t able to find other video sharing services where B&H was posting its content. While YouTube is by far the largest video sharing service out there, many others when put together add a significant chunk of reach, so it looks like B&H might be missing some opportunities there as well.

Still, overall these are minor details for a retailer that is clearly ahead of the pack when it comes to using video.  Their video production is top-notch.  The videos themselves clearly convey that B&H has strong product knowledge; the company’s support of video is evident in that they took the plunge to build out a video team and based on the fact they’re supporting video with in-house development resources.  B&H is overall a great example of what’s possible with video when a retailer really devotes itself to the medium.