Video Commerce: A Video Commerce Roundtable

Earlier this year, Retail Online Integration gathered together three leading video 
e-commerce experts for a conference call to discuss best practices and trends within the emerging channel that retailers need to be aware of in 2012. Joining us on the call were:

Justin Foster, founder of the Video Commerce Consortium, an industry association of e-commerce professionals and online marketers dedicated to advancing the use of video in e-commerce. Foster is also co-founder and vice president of market development at Liveclicker, a video commerce solutions provider.

John Lazarchic, vice president of e-commerce at PETCO, a specialty cross-channel retailer that provides products, 
services and advice targeted to pet parents. PETCO operates 1,100 stores in 50 states, as well as a pet product and information destination at Petco.com. The company has about 200 in-house and vendor-supplied videos, with one employee devoted entirely to video commerce production.

Jon Schroeder, video director and editor at Crutchfield, a cross-channel retailer of consumer electronics products. There are 600 videos currently housed on Crutchfield’s website, including in-house and vendor-supplied videos. Schroeder is part of a five-person team that’s exclusively tasked with producing and editing videos.

Here are the highlights of our discussion:

Retail Online Integration: How do you use video on your e-commerce site?
Jon Schroeder: We have product spotlight videos that highlight one particular product or group of products, as well as editorial or DIY [do it yourself] videos that teach prospects how to do specific things, such as how to best set up speakers. We also have a new kind of video we’re calling the “heads up display” series, or HUD videos. These videos give prospects an in-depth look at car stereos.

John Lazarchic: We’ve got product-specific videos supplied by vendors that are geared to help consumers make decisions on buying a specific product. For example, showing how a product is used or the benefits of it. We’re also starting to build our library of 
how-to videos produced by PETCO. These tend to be more general in nature, such as how to set up a terrarium for your reptile, how to set up an aquarium, how to groom your dog, etc.
We’ve also created 
in-house videos for branding 
purposes. For example, we did a branding-oriented video last season around dog apparel. It was a two-minute apparel photo shoot video, which gave viewers a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on during a dog photo shoot. These kinds of videos aren’t really designed to drive sales as much as they are to put a little character behind the PETCO brand.
They let consumers know that we’re fun and we get you and your pet. We push these kinds of videos out to our Facebook page as well as post them on our homepage and email them to customers.