Video Commerce: A Video Commerce Roundtable

Justin Foster: Have there been any cases where 
vendors have offered to compensate you to produce video content? Has there been any success there or lessons learned?
JS: We’ve had a few vendors compensate us to make videos for their line of products. I think it worked out wonderfully.

JL: We haven’t specifically gone to vendors for funding to produce videos yet. But when vendors want to do more promotional-type videos on our website, they fund the production of them and also the real estate and impressions that they’re getting.

The Value of Video
ROI: What do you like best about video on your site? What’s the value of it for your company?
JS: On a quantitative level, we can measure conversion uptick when a potential customer has watched a video. We also know that when someone watches a product spotlight video, for instance, they’re more likely to add it to their cart. We know that video is a great way to spread brand awareness and sell our advisors and their knowledge. This makes potential customers feel comfortable to make purchases now or down the road.

JL: Same thing. We can track data. We can look at whether video contributes to a consumer’s propensity to add a product to their cart or convert on a product. We also use our videos for branding and consumer engagement, which is of even bigger value to us.

ROI: Can you discuss any specifics around the 
conversion rate you see when a video is associated with a product?
JS: I can tell you that about 5 percent of our total web traffic ends up watching a video. Of that 5 percent, there’s a positive correlation between conversion and watching a video.

JL: Not that we can release. But we’re seeing enough of a positive correlation to continue to invest in it.

JF: In terms of ongoing support for video and the ability to keep investing in it, how much of that’s coming from the impact it’s having in your stores and through catalogs and 
social media?
JL: We haven’t really tried to correlate video back to store activity. I think it’s one of those holy grail questions: How do you measure your website and the impact it has on your stores? Everyone is still trying to figure out a solid measurement on that. When you get into video it’s an even more granular measurement. It becomes even more difficult to correlate any kind of value to that. However, I think as mobile starts becoming more of a piece of the business, we can start measuring mobile usage in-store via people scanning QR codes or near field communication codes to play videos in-store. Then we’ll begin to start getting some measurements.

JS: We try to foster multichannel activity for our potential customers by using QR codes in our catalogs that go directly to our videos. When someone is sitting at home flipping through our catalog they can whip out their smartphone, scan a QR code and get more in-depth with the particular product they’re interested in. We’ve done this with several of our catalogs, which are sent to 30 million people six times per year. We have the in-home penetration, but to get the potential customer even more engaged with our videos on their smartphone is that much better for us.