Treepodia – The leading Product Video solution for e-commerce

No... Not really...

As we’ve repeatedly stressed here in the past the only way to build a sound, stable, and successful ecommerce business is through a continuous process of improvement based on meticulous, rigorous, and repeated A/B testing. Simply put, you need to adhere to these principles as if your livelihood depended on it (Wait a sec…, it DOES depend on it!):

• Always test your intuitions
• Never take anything for granted
• Test religiously

Here at Treepodia we live by our ability to tweak and test our client’s product videos, yet with monotonous regularity we come up with a little tweak that results in improvements that surprise even us. It’s a humbling experience because we’ve been at this game for a while, and sometimes we forget that what we don’t know, will always exceed what we do. The latest case-in-point was the result of a small tweak we did for the product videos on Toolking.com.

Introducing the Tool King

Started in 1978 as a small retail store in Denver Colorado, by 1983 the company was being recognized as an Inc 500 Company. In 2001 the company launched ToolKing.com, and in 2006 the site was recognized as a  Top 500 Retailer by Internet Retailer and as the top 28th fastest growing e-commerce company in the world.

Product video views increased by 100% thanks to this one small tweak

What we did

The change on Toolking’s videos was really minor. As you can see above all we did was add a nice juicy “Play” icon to the 1st frame of every video so that when visitors come to the page the player is displaying that icon as the video’s thumbnail.

Product video views double!

After an A/B test conducted over thousands of individual page views we found this small, seemingly inconsequential tweak massively increased visitors’ interactions with the player, resulting in more video plays, which in turn increased conversion rates and sales.

How big was the impact? you ask.

Well, overall adding the  icon boosted the ratio of video views per page view from 2.7% to 5.4% , or in other words, generated a 100% increase. Not an improvement anyone is likely to discount…

so if you want to greatly boost the number of views your product views are getting I warmly recommend adding a little triangle icon to the 1st frame of every video you’ve got published…

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Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ucdaviscoe/5933842945

Recently we began working with Proctor and Gamble to help drive up the engagement, conversions and sales, on their Olay brand ecommerce site. I figure this is a great opportunity to revisit a topic that we haven’t really talked about in a while:

How do we create automated product videos anyway?

Our product video platform generates individual product videos by automatically pulling existing product descriptions, attributes, images, etc. from an ecommerce website’s catalog data feed , and using them to generate short video clips for each product in the catalog.

Treepodia automatically generates product videos by utilizing an ecommerce website’s existing data. Click the image above to go to Olay's site and see the live video.

What are the advantages of automating the process?

1. For limitless scalability its really the only way to go

The most obvious advantage of automating the process of creating, publishing and syndicating product videos is that its the only way ecommerce vendors with hundreds of products on offer can scale up adoption of video presentations for their entire catalog without breaking the bank or spending months and years in video production. This particular point was again validated again just recently by Marc Joseph, founder and president of Dollardays.com, in an interview he gave us:

“…When we found Treepodia we knew we’d found a value proposition that would give us more bang for our buck by producing thousands of product videos that would rank in product searches, rather than hoping for the one BIG viral video to come along…”

 2. Always up-to-date, but never any hassle

Another advantage is that because the videos are generated from the vendor’s product feed they’re guaranteed to always be up-to-date. Any change made to the products on offer is immediately reflected in the videos, regardless of whether its just a minor adjustment to the prices of a few select items, or a major overhaul of the catalog for seasonal sales or other promotions.

3. Seamlessly matched to your site by definition

Automated videos are based on a video template designed specifically for the client, and in close collaboration with their web-design team. As the screenshot above demonstrates the resulting videos are perfectly matched to the website’s branding and page layout.
This is rarely the case with product videos created via outsourced video production companies, that often have a tendency to push their own creative agenda…

Treepodia enhanced products on Israeli Daily Deals site Cliqa

Earlier this week our ecommerce video platform went live on Israeli daily deals site “Cliqa“. In the press release our CEO, Tal Rubencyzk, gave the following statement

“Treepodia is glad to combine its technology for the first time within the daily deal industry. We are sure that the collaboration between Treepodia and Cliqa will give it’s users a joyful and unique experience.”

The excitement beyond the niceties

This is a very exciting move for us, and we hope to see more local daily deal sites following suite soon. I think we have a good reason to be optimistic that this is going to happen soon. Here’s why:

Why Video is a BIG DEAL for Daily Deal sites

Unlike Search or Social Networking where, for the meantime, a dominant player has cornered the market (Google and Facebook respectively), the Daily-Deal landscape is still much more fragmented and in many countries different players are still vying for a dominant position and seeking out to incorporate features that will give them a clear edge over their competitors. Or in the words of Oded Barel, owner of Cliqa:

“The whole area of daily deals and group buying, which has grown and developed drastically in Israel during the last year, is filled with rivalry between the different competitors in the market. The service offered by Cliqa together with Treepodia of video clips describing daily deals and transforming information to an interactive experience, is a unique service which does not exist in this area in Israel nor in the global market.”

Deals become more engaging when presented in a video

Daily Deals your Bread and Butter?

We’re currently seeking more Daily Deal sites to partner with so if you’re involved in this competitive and exciting sector of the online economy please contact us to learn how our dynamic and automated video platform can help you rise above the competition too.