CommerceVideos.com

By Kristi Treder & Justin Foster

You may know Howie Mandel as the face of Buy.com and the 13+ million views his YouTube videos have amassed. Is it any wonder that video and the Buy.com brand are inseparable?  The company takes its connection to the entertainment world seriously, as evidenced by the creation of Buy.TV. Buy.com’s video initiative has even gone from the computer screen to the small screen in your living room (TV, that is).  Every Sunday morning, BuyTV is featured on G4, the cable network. Lest you think Buy.com’s video commerce/entertainment initiative (or “commertainment,” for those of us into buzzwords) aren’t really relevant to your business, the company also parades its commitment to video by trumpeting video merchandising and video marketing best practices that would put most e-commerce merchants to shame.  No matter your vantage point, the company’s devotion to video is undeniable – it’s literally plastered all over the company, everywhere you look.

The leap from e-commerce to entertainment is one that a few large e-commerce merchants are experimenting with now.  Borders Books & Music is another player eyeing this space; CompUSA gears its video program more toward an entertainment angle as well.  Ralph Lauren blurs the line between e-commerce and online media with RL TV, while Karmaloop, a smaller online retailer featuring urban apparel, produces video content with an entertainment twist.  Other retailers are sure to follow suit if these pioneers are able to prove a sustainable business model and successfully bridge the world of media and e-commerce.  It’s a tall order considering the sweeping cultural and business differences between the two industries.  Thinking about video as a business unto itself as opposed to as a tool used to support the core business of selling products and services online is a major strategic decision, and Buy.com is only a few chips shy of going ‘all in’ in this respect.

What can retailers learn from Buy.com?

An entertainment angle is not for every retailer, but there are elements of the Buy.com video strategy that any retailer could appreciate.  To start, Buy.com’s videos are professionally produced in-house.   The company clearly has the afterburners turned on in the video production department, as it is offering a slew of new videos each month, with hundreds available in its on-demand video library already. The BuyTV set was professionally built, and BuyTV ‘webisodes’ feature clean graphics of product images, professional intro/outro animations, smooth transitions between shots, and polished on-screen talent.  Scripts are clear and well edited; several camera angles are standard. Even the lighting (which is especially difficult to do well) appears to be handled by pros that understand what it takes to deliver TV-quality video.

BuyTV’s format mimics a news broadcast, with two co-anchors seated behind a large wooden desk.  Interviews with manufacturer reps appear in abundance. There’s even footage from trade show floors that’s a little less produced, although it does humanize the talent and show how the company is closely connected to the action in its industry.  Buy.tv features a special ‘Top 10′ series that provides a rundown of top selling products in different categories.  The site even showcases a large selection of movie trailers available on-demand, a nice supporting use of video for Buy.com’s sizable entertainment DVD sales business.

The company does well in other departments also:

• By presenting ‘add to cart’ options on video pages featured on Buy.tv, Buy.com is taking an important step forward where other retailers intent on going the entertainment route fail in dramatic fashion: connecting content to actual commerce. Karmaloop is a great example of an online retailer with video entertainment cred that fails miserably in this respect.
• SEO techniques on Buy.tv were clearly not ignored.  The practice of featuring one video per page, using descriptive page titles, appropriately using H1 tags, including permalinks for the video pages, delivering relevant meta descriptions, syndicating video content to YouTube, including nav links to other video content are all best practices in use here.  A quick SEO check showed many of Buy.com’s video pages ranking high in Google – with a good chunk even occupying the coveted #1 slot.
• While simple and somewhat basic, Buy.com’s video player is manages to remain elegant.
• Quality of the video is high.  Motion is crisp and clear, with little buffering on high-speed Internet connections.
• Buy.com places video on its product pages.  In addition to email video, product page video remains one of the key drivers of video commerce revenue.
• Video availability is integrated into the on-site search results
• BuyTV is linked directly in the top nav of Buy.com.  I wanted to cry when I saw that, I was so happy!
• “This week on Buy TV” is featured on the home page above the fold.  I was impressed!
• Just in case a shopper missed the other prominent video callouts on the home page, BuyTV is featured in the bottom page nav.
• Related videos displayon product pages.  So cool.

While Buy.com is doing a lot of things right, every site can improve in some areas.

Areas of Focus for Buy.com:

• The design of Buy.com’s YouTube channel is a disgrace.   How a serious brand like Buy.com could commit itself to such an amateur presence goes beyond the common rationalizations one might use to support it: e.g. to  ‘humanize’ the brand or to make it seem ‘more real.’  The investment here is clearly not on par with the rest of the company’s video initiative; a standalone video presence (e.g. Buy.tv) with syndication to a standard YouTube page would even be better.
• Videos are set to auto-play on product pages.  We consistently find that setting videos to auto-play vs. user initiated play on product pages is a losing proposition that’s more likely to distract the shopper than aid conversion.
• Video sharing options on Buy.tv are nonexistant, or so difficult to find that we couldn’t after doing a fair amount of digging.  There are no visibile options to email the videos to a friend, embed on social networks, share via blogs or social bookmarking services, or allow affiliates to pull down the videos.
• Some of the videos on Buy.com product pages appear to be served with YouTube, while others are done with Buy.com’s own player.  In addition to creating technical complexity and needlessly introducing manual processes into its video publishing process, it forces YouTube’s branding on Buy.com’s site.
• Even worse, when clicking on product videos on product pages that are served with YouTube, the user is directed to YouTube. This is definitely not a best practice.  Any retailer showcasing a product page to a shopper should do everything in its power to get the shopper to add to cart – or at least stay on the site.  Driving traffic to YouTube makes little if any sense.
• I signed up for Buy.com emails a few months ago and haven’t seen any with video embedded directly within the emails.  I wondered why Buy.com is not exploring that opportunity given its large email audience and potential to drive additional site traffic and higher sales from email campaigns using video.
• It looks like the product videos on the product pages are being added manually, one product at a time (at least the YouTube ones).  Time suck.
• Top 10 videos – it’s not entirely intuitive to feature top products below the video; it might be easier to place calls to action to buy the products in the video player itself.
• There are no links to Buy.tv or the product pages on the YouTube channel.  It’s a missed opportunity for traffic, albeit a small one.
• There aren’t any detailed descriptions of the products I could find by any of the YouTube videos.
• I couldn’t find Buy.com’s videos anywhere other than on Buy.com and YouTube.  While YouTube is the largest video sharing service, many others exist that could drive additional traffic for Buy.com
• Buy.com’s Twitter updates are driving people to YouTube instead of product pages or pages w/integrated checkout on Buy.tv.  I wondered why that was, as it would seem to make more sense to drive people to a place where they could check out.
• I thought it was interesting that Buy.com was selling ad space to T-Mobile on Buy.tv.  Is Buy.com driving more revenue through advertising on the site than actually getting people to buy products on Buy.com?  What is the balance of advertising vs. selling?  I have yet to find a single retailer that’s been successful in their online video efforts in driving any sizable amount of advertising dollars on their video pages.
• It didn’t make sense to me that Buy.com would use YouTube as the central comment system.  For SEO purposes wouldn’t it make more sense to have people comment and share videos over Buy.tv, where Buy.com could more effectively control the look and feel of the pages?

In all, Buy.com is far ahead of the e-commerce world with regard to how aggressively it’s pursuing video.  I suspect we’ll see in the next year or two whether Buy.com continues down the path of pursuing its entertainment dreams, or instead falls back on its e-commerce roots should those ambitions not pan out as hoped.  No matter the outcome, as one of the pioneers of video commerce, the rest of us would be well served to keep their efforts on our radar as we plan our own expansion of video online.