In the world of consumer products, telling or showing customers how a product works is an important part of the sales process. Maybe that is why so many exercise equipment manufacturers rely on infomercials to sell their stuff: Infomercials allow them to demonstrate the product. If the company is lucky or has the bucks, it can get a buff celebrity to demonstrate the product on an infomercial or a free informational video a potential customer can order.

Manufacturers also can demonstrate products in physical retail stores. Think of the late NordicTrack, or FranklinCovey, or even the cosmetics counter of the department store.

These channels -- television and stores -- have a huge advantage in selling these types of complex products. The Web and hard-copy catalogs just can't provide the same kind of moving demonstrations that are available on video or in person.

That is a problem a company called Vendaria has been looking to solve for the online channel.

Vendaria works with manufacturers to create short video clips of how a product works. With just three lines of code, those product demos can be placed on e-tailers' Web sites. Vendaria's technology looks for the connection speed and media player information of a customer who clicks to see the short video, letting those with slow connections, as well as those with fast ones, see the little movie.

Vendaria first began testing the technology -- and whether or not it made sense for business -- last holiday season. Without any proven successes, Vendaria had its work cut out for it in the sales area. To combat that, Vendaria waived production fees for manufacturers' first five products and the fees for hosting the video for the first 45 days. And the company got some pretty big customers to give it a try, including toy makers Hasbro, K'Nex, and Lego.

Video demos of these kinds of building toys makes sense. You can't see what it does if it's just sitting in the box. You need to see what you can build with it. That's why physical-store retailers often take the stuff out of the box and build something to display on the shelf.

Vendaria found this approach -- showing a video demo on the Web site -- extremely successful in selling products online.

Five percent of the customers who watch the video put the product in their carts, according to CEO Scott Ferris, a former Starbucks executive. That is a vast improvement from the average of 2 percent of online customers who just view static product pages. Twenty-one percent of customers presented with the option of watching the video actually watched it.

Last December Vendaria had about 18 manufacturers signed up for its try-before-you-buy program, including the aforementioned toy manufacturers. It has since converted every single one of those manufacturers into paying customers.

In March the company also expanded into another new market, offering its services for marketing e-mail purposes. Those who have HTML-based e-mail can receive direct marketing messages that are just a few lines of code linking to the product demonstration video.

In early tests, 27.7 percent of those who received the e-mail clicked to see the video, Ferris said.

It's not surprising that consumers respond better to video demos. A text product description and an image can't begin to sell something as well as a video can.

The virtual model feature on the LandsEnd.com site is just another example. Only very brave consumers risk buying clothes without trying them on. If you can try them on a virtual model that happens to have your same measurements, the chances of an expensive mistake go down immensely. Buying the product, having it shipped to you, trying it on, being disappointed, and then shipping it back is a much bigger hassle than going to the store -- no matter how much we hate going to the store.

Send me your ideas or thoughts on how online retailers can do a better job of telling their product stories online.

» posted by ITworld staff

InfoWorld

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