What is a "Product" online? What is Merchandising?
Web 1.0 still has massive unsolved issues with how to handle product assortment online. Web 2.0 is making the problem much, much harder.
As a teaser, let me show you a clipping from a site called
This Next:
Is 43Folders even a product? What makes it similar to the Egg Chair (red, I presume). The only similarity, in fact, is that people voted for both of them. That's it.
What are the implications? Your product page now has to carry a much heavier load.
I have been working with retailers online for 10 years. My company
built the first ecommerce site that did $1MM in revenue in one day.
(It was Egghead.com). But all of the issues faced by Nike, J. Crew, and
others around how to handle product assortment online will pale in
comparison with how to handle when your furniture line is being
merchandised right next to a Web site on personal productivity.
Until recently, your product page could be managed in isolation. You navigated to it from a search result, promotion, or category page, and it showed a picture, accessories, description and price.
In the age of participatory media, however, the way we view products is changing, and it may mean that the definition of a product has to change.
Here's why: now that consumers have the ability to create their own media, there's no telling how or where your product will end up. So sites like This Next (and notcot.org, and others) dispense with your merchant's concept of assortment and replaces it with the recommendations of real people who like to discover, shop, and share great products.
Check out the home page and you'll see a grid of so-called products that people have recommended. On this page, you can find traditional products (a shoe, a shirt, a beer) next to "products" such as web pages.
But it gets worse. Check this out:
In this case, both suggestions are products, but the first, a duffel, is enticing. The product shot is beautiful, and the neutral background enables it to be at home on a foreign site. The paint image, however, is a disaster.
On the Benjamin Moore site, I am certain that the living room shot was quite lovely. However, when shrunken to thumbnail, it fails. Perhaps B-M needs to think about having a thumbnail image available?
In this last example, you see the biggest risk:
While the Basil Hayden Bourbon looks like a very high-style product, it is still booze. Now how does TiVo feel about being in the same category as high-end whiskey?
The point is that merchandising is completely out of your hands, so what does it mean to your product, your brand? What does it mean when your brand itself can be a product (say, when someone posts the Disney website rather than a Disney princess dress, for example)?
Being a merchant online is already hard enough. But social media may just be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. But there is hope. Here are a few ideas:
1. Expand your idea of a "product page". Is your page friendly to direct linking?
2. Make certain that your product page has a "clippable" thumbnail that can be copied onto other sites.
3. Surf these sites. See how you are being presented. Understand.
Social shopping and social media can be a great opportunity with real risks. A little time spent now while the category is developing may help you avoid a lot of time later trying to control a problem.
