Article

Retailer videos find audience on YouTube

According to new research, 73 percent of U.S. retailers are making use of online video.

June 19, 2011

The following is an excerpt from a recent conversation on RetailWire, with comments from its panel of contributors.

Online video is a big deal and becoming bigger based on the latest from YouTube.

The website, celebrating six years online this month, reported the number of daily views it generates has moved past the three billion mark, a 50 percent increase over last year. As a release to announce the accomplishment quantified, "That's the equivalent of nearly half the world's population watching a YouTube video each day, or every U.S. resident watching at least nine videos a day."

Content on the site is also exploding, with more than two days worth of video being uploaded to the site every minute. That number represents a 37 percent jump over the last six months and 100 percent over last year.

The numbers of merchants and the views they generate on YouTube has taken off in recent years, with chains including Best Buy and Walmart creating multiple video channels.

Retailers' use of online video, in general, continues to increase with 73 percent of U.S. sites using video on company sites as well as YouTube, Facebook, etc, according to eMarketer.

Craig Wax, CEO of Invodo, told eMarketer, that retailers are using online video to improve the customer experience. "From a quantitative perspective, they're looking to increase sales conversion rates and at the same time drive more traffic to their site. They're able to do that because of video's impact on SEO. They're also looking to decrease the costs associated with product returns. When people watch videos about a product, they're typically much less likely to return it. Video can remove a lot of the uncertainty people have in buying certain items online."

Discussion Questions: Do you believe online videos should become essential to retailer marketing and communications plans? How should third-party sites such as YouTube be incorporated into the plans?

I believe video is very important but a big miss if all you can use it for is a generic product example. Why? Because you may sell the viewer but lose the sale. The best ones I've noticed using video are farm stands--yes farm stands. They can make a quick video of what they just picked that morning and send it out to their lists to juice sales. They remain on YT to show how committed they are to freshness. How to capture that energy, relevance, localization and newness with apparel remains to be seen. - Bob Phibbs, president/CEO, The Retail Doctor & Associates

In general, there's no question that video is a preferable medium for breaking the attention span barrier. However, it's always a question of the value of the content. If a retailer has great content and video is the best format, then YouTube is a great means of exposure. I think marketers need to think less about incorporating YouTube into their plans and more about creating wonderful, exciting, spreadable content. If YouTube happens to be the best vehicle to deliver it with, then go for it. - Doug Stephens, president, Retail Prophet

I agree with Bob that video should be used to differentiate the retailer, and not just promote a product the customer can purchase somewhere else. Video can also position a store's expertise, store experience, promote an event, etc. Most important, it should result in the customer visiting the store, or at the very least remembering why they shop at the store. - Doug Fleener, president and managing partner, Dynamic Experiences Group

I hate the way web folks love to publish big numbers that are meaningless. I'm reminded of about a web search in a comment from a cartoon recently: "3 million cat videos; zero useful information."

As a video specialist, my sense is that retailers need video on the website, but it's more explanatory video--show people what they couldn't otherwise find out about the product. They CHOSE to look at the product. But online video is no panacea for drawing people in--it just doesn't play that role. Online video reaches the people who are highly motivated to seek out the video.

My fundamental advice: retailers should absolutely use video. They should put it on their website and probably NOT on YouTube. And, they should create much more convincing sales video and avoid what production companies really want to make--the "wow" video. - Doug Garnett, founder & CEO, Atomic Direct