Product pictures on steroids

Silverdock produces video for online retailers, and cheap too, starting at $100 a piece.
Here's their cool take on how to showcase clothing. Ain't that great?




Also check out this selection of my past posts on online videos for shopping:
http://michaelslevy.blogspot.com/2008/04/video-merchandising-features-coming-up.html
http://michaelslevy.blogspot.com/2008/05/video-merchandising-contd-video.html
http://michaelslevy.blogspot.com/2008/05/more-video-powered-online-sales.html
http://michaelslevy.blogspot.com/2008/08/more-video-you-can-shop.html

Video merchandising cont'd: video lookbook

The Jordan Brand shows off its collection via a video lookbook, driving to the Nike Store.

Video merchandising features coming up...

Now that broadband access has become the norm in major e-commerce markets and CDN/bandwith pricing has come down (thank you Amazon services), clothing online retailers enrich their product pages with video merchandising.

A couple of cool examples:

Saks Fifth Avenue (USA)
Saks has just launched its 'Fashion in action' video catalog, where 17 selected looks from this Spring's collection are spotlighted. Videos are short-length, with a classic TV-style narration and background music. Kudos for the jewelry cross-selling by the narrator while describing a dress.

ASOS (UK)
They've been doing it for quite a while, with their 'Catwalk' video feature, directly accessible from the product page (under the product picture area). Great stuff: extra-short length video of a model wearing the item and walking back and forth on a runway, with a current radio hit song playing in the background.

Videos of models wearing the clothing pieces are really a plus: consumers can see how the item is worn, how it fits and flows on a real person, and from all angles. Also a great way to suggest outfits and full looks, from tops to bottoms to accessories...

Next up I hope: an interactive video, where users can click each piece worn by the model in order to directcly access the product page?

Update:
RUSHCOLLECTION (FRANCE)

PPR's fashion pure play has just launched its 'Fashion Week' online runway video feature. Select a theme/style and check out men and women models sporting this season's latest fashion. Very nicely done and enticing.

Google's 'Search Within A Site' makes e-retailers mad...

On March 4, Google introduced a new feature that lets users stay on Google to find pages inside major sites. The search box appears when someone enters the name of certain Web addresses or company names rather than searching for specific terms (see screenshot above, courtesy of Techcrunch).

The feature is drawing the ire of many e-retailers, who raise two primary concerns:

• First, ads for competitors can be displayed on the Google results page of a site search. This could mean lost traffic and sales for the searched retailer!

• Second, performing a site search on Google does not take into account merchandising rules retailers create for their own in-site search tool.

Techcrunch's take

The New York Times' take

Internet Retailer's take