Treepodia – The leading Product Video solution for e-commerce

Would you trust this person?

One of my rules of thumb in dealing with people is never trust someone who says “trust me.”
No one trust-worthy I know ever uses this turn of phrase and I’ve heard it uttered by highly untrustworthy individuals far too often. It’s like the mating call of the sleazy salesperson.

What do I trust?

I believe actions speak louder than words. If you’re trust-worthy, I’ll figure it out for myself as your actions (or lack thereof) will sooner or later prove your actual worth. Somehow I doubt that I’m the only person who feels this way.

It’s not just people I validate this way, I subject products and services to a similar acid test – don’t tell me how marvelous you are. Show me!

Don’t get me wrong, I want to trust sales people, service people, and my new MP3, but I want them to earn that trust. Prove to me you’re what you claim to be and I’m yours.

Video – the trustmaker

Video’s has be proven to be great at building trust.

As a recent article published by Mark Robertson in his ReelSEO.com blog pointed out, the mere presence of video on an ecommerce website increases sales because video increases shoppers’ trust in your store and your products.

The article outlines how the mere presence of video on your product pages has a positive effect on overall sales, regardless of whether your shoppers watch the videos or not.

This isn’t only because video is great for demonstrating a given product, but also because video has been proven to be an effective tool for establishing consumer confidence and trust. Here’s how

1. Adding videos of your products means you trust them enough to show it in full multi-dimensional format.
2. You’re committed to  giving your customers the best user experience possible.
3. It makes your site seem more reliable which in turn increases consumer confidence.

Or, as one respondent to Mark’s article succinctly commented:

“Video implies investment, of thought, time, and money. It’s a marker of how important quality of content is to your offering. That notion drives consumer response in a very profound way.”

I recently came across another article from Flumtion, a streaming software company founded by a group of open source developers and multimedia experts, that described the ways in which streaming video can increase ecommerce sales.

Number one?
Trust, of course, but with a slightly different spin:

“[S]poken statements are stronger than any written text or image, which supports product claims effectively. Video also adds a human element, creating an inviting and relaxing environment that creates trust for the customer.”

The bottom line

My conclusion from all the above is that video helps you gain your shoppers’ trust, but don’t trust my word on it, test and see for yourselves…

Epilogue

Writing this I couldn’t help remembering Monthy Python’s calssic “Dead Parrot Sketch”. I’ve always felt it epitomizes the absolute worst one could possibly encounter as far as trust in commerce goes. Enjoy…

Image credit: rick

Ecommerce video myths debunked

I’ve just finished reading a well written post by Daniel Sevitt on the ReelSeo blog titled: “The Three Types of Online Video for Business“. Daniel writes well and covers his subject matter eloquently but when I finished reading I remained with the sensation that I’d been taken for a merry little ride.

Sales Are Only 0.1 Percent (?!?)

I know it’s a heavy accusation, but I can explain:
When someone writes a post titled “The Three Types of Online Video for Business” and mentions in it a reference to someone else’s “Top 6 Reasons B-to-B Marketers Need Videos” I guess I expect the word “Sales” to appear often. Daniel’s post has 2,178 words. The word “Sales” appears twice. That’s less than 0.1 percent…

Apparently the “Top 6 Reasons B-to-B Marketers Need Videos” are, and I quote:

Grab people’s attention instantly

Tell your story in less time

Bring your ideas to life

Make your site stickier

Create a buzz with viral video

Bring your website into the 21st century

What I learned from Eli Wallach about Sales

Call me coarse or unsophisticated if you like, but I’ve always believed there’s a lot of truth in the line uttered by Eli Wallach in the scene shown above, and taken from “The Good the Bad and the Ugly”:

“When you have to shoot…Shoot! Don’t talk”

Let me explain:
With all due respect to the 6 points Daniel quotes in his post, I’d like to make 3 points of my own:

1. The purpose of a business is TO MAKE MONEY.
2. Online retailers make money by SELLING PRODUCTS.
3. The primary purpose of online video for retailers is TO SELL PRODUCTS.

To paraphrase Wallach:

“Pardon me pilgrim but ‘Grabbing people’s attention’ (pt #1), ‘Telling a story’ (pt #2) & ‘Bringing ideas to life’ (pt #3)… Heck, that all sounds like a lot fancy talkin’ to me!”

Although ‘Bringing their website into the 21st century’ (pt #4) sounds really impressive, I’m pretty sure 99 out of 100 vendors would prefer using video to SELL THEIR INVENTORY.

Let’s go back to basics

Video, indeed any form of advertising or marketing, has little or no value for its own sake. Its value is as a means-to-an-end. For etailers that end is TO DRIVE SALES.

By that logic the best way to judge the addition of video to your site is by the impact it has on your bottom line. If you can get a good impact on your conversions for a low investment – GOOD FOR YOU, you’ve done well for yourself.

I might be old fashioned

I might be old fashioned, but getting the best-bang-for-the-buck seems to me to be what a good business is all about.

• Our experience has shown us that adding video to a product’s listing can impact the conversion rates for the product by anything from 35% to 300%.

• We’ve learned that premium & complex products often show greater impact on their conversion rates because clients are more inclined to make a hefty purchase after watching a video that explains a premium product’s benefits.

Going back to my bang-for-a-buck point from before, it’s every etailers DUTY to his or her business to get these conversion rates at the LOWEST COST and effort possible – no small feat when one considers the vast majority of online retailers have over 500 products in their catalog.

When one takes into consideration these facts it’s easy to understand why automated ecommerce video solutions able of creating thousands of product videos in a matter of hours, are readily adopted by retail leaders such as Ice.com, Diamond.com, EyeBuyDirect.com, Elady.com, ElectricShopping.com, and others.

I guess when you’re as successful as these guys you know only too well there’s “A time for talkin’ and a time for shootin’…”

Image credit: Daquella manera