VideoRetailer.org - Exploring the Intersection of Video and e-Commerce.

Wine videos: watch and taste!

Despite the general economic slowdown, the global wine market is growing. Every year more people drink more wine and they start to spend more on each bottle. It is estimated that the global wine market is worth some 240 Billion USD, with the US being the biggest consumer market.  France comes second.  China is growing more quickly than any other country (in 2008, China generated total revenues of $5.8 Billion). In terms of production, more than 60% of all wine is still made in Europe; with France, Italy and Spain as the leading wine producers.

Although wine distribution, marketing and communication varies A LOT from country to country and consumer behavior is often driven by social and cultural factors, there is one common trend: the Internet has become central to marketing and selling wine as online sales grow. A study by the Bordeaux Management School in France found online wine sales grew 30% in the last year alone in that country.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find reliable numbers on how much wine is sold online every year overall, but since France alone saw a 30% increase in web sales from 2008 to 2009, the overall volume seems important enough to dedicate some thoughts on the future relevance of video for online wine retailing.

I looked at some of the most important online wine retailers to see if and how they use video in their online strategy and found the outcome disappointing. Video marketing is still a rare discipline in the online wine retailing business it seems although there are a couple of extraordinary success stories, like Gary Vaynerchuk’s WineLibrary.tv or the German wine shop TVino.de

Gary Vaynerchuk, one of Internet’s hottest retail celebrities has created a business of $70 million based partly on the success of his daily video wine-tasting show at WineLibrary.TV. Wine entrepreneur and social media star, he is an early adopter of online video marketing. He published more than 840 episodes, presenting 3 different wines every day for almost 3 years. Vaynerchuk has perfectly understood the value and the power of online video in order to create a brand and broaden his potential customer base to ultimately sell his products over the Internet. But most of all he has shown a great understanding for what drives online buying processes in general and decision making when it comes to wine and wine-related products in particular.

Think about it for a moment: wine is just not like any other product you shop for off or online. It is not a standard product. There are millions of different producers and brands and quality can differ from year to year depending where it comes from. So, wine is a typical “prescription” product. Most likely, you would rather listen to an expert, a vendor, a waiter or a wine-literate friend than risk 20 Euros just because you like the label. Generally speaking and for most people, wine shopping is a rather sensual experience. You want to touch the bottle, feel the label, see the color, get some expert advise on what to eat with it and most of all you want to know how it tastes before you buy it. So either you are lucky enough to taste the wine yourself before you decide or you need somebody knowledgeable to describe the taste to you.

As more expensive wines became mainstream consumer goods, sharing wine knowledge also became a vehicle for communicating social status.  In addition, being able to select a decent wine has required specialized knowledge. Consumers that know about wine represent a broader consumer group called called “the professional consumer.”  Professional consumers are people who actually want to know stuff about the product they are consuming.  They want to learn about it - especially when it comes to food and its origin - and then they want to share that knowledge within their social network.

Video content in the form of wine-tasting shows -check out the examples of WineLibrary, TVino (Germany), Majestic Wine (UK) or Wein&Co (Austria)- have great potential as they provide marketing and communication elements so crucial to the online decison making process.

Watching an entertaining and informative 5 minute video that compares 3 different Riojas, Chardonnays or Pinot Noirs can be a much more interesting experience than shopping for wine in the aisles of a supermarket. Getting an expert description of taste and comparing prices before actually ordering a case is an extremely useful and user-friendly decision making tool for online shoppers. Also, these kind of videos are relatively easy and low cost to produce since merchants don’t need complicated settings or sophisticated post-production. All that’s needed is a credible presenter or host who connects with the audience, a camera operator, and a video editor.  In many cases that can be one person.

Wine online retailers who use good video content and wine-tasting shows will have a competitive advantage compared to text-based shops since they offer entertainment and education, something that many wine shoppers are actually looking for.

Amazon.com’s Video Commerce Widget for Affiliates

With its Video Commerce widget, Amazon leverages the power of video, but this time, outside of its site boundaries. Once again, the Seattle-based eRetailer is showing its leadership in the adoption of new technology, surfing two separate trends: video and social media.

Hello and thank you for your interest in Amazon.com’s new video widget. This is a new and exciting way to generate revenue by adding product links to the videos you already post to your web site or blog. Simply upload your video to Amazon and add the products you would like to showcase. When you’re finished adding products, you receive a small snippet of HTML that you can use to embed your video onto your web page. When people make a purchase through the product links in your video, you’ll earn money through your Amazon’s associates account. It’s that easy. [...]

The resulting widget looks terrific. As the videos are playing, links to the product pages with pricing and rating information pop-up, making it very easy for users to access the product they’re viewing and adding it to the shopping cart.

The text/link overlay approach isn’t new: there are a handful of companies already doing this type of overlay technology for retail sites. But what’s really interesting about this approach is the combination of video and social media:

1) Pushing the envelope on the video commerce side… prior to this new feature, Amazon was already heavily pushing video content onto many of its top categories, whether it’s for the Amazon Kindle, the Wii (see below) or video games. But up until now, the products weren’t featured in the video itself, and the user had to look around to actually click on the product of interest.

2) … Delivering the tools affiliates need… While Linkshare (Flexlinks) and Commission Junction (SmartLinks) offer some options for pushing video to affiliates, these are very limited and require a lot of work on the part of the merchant, which limits the number of merchants which actually offer video content.

3) With a unique community twist! This is my favorite part - and the smartest of all. Rather than providing stock content to the affiliates, which would be perceived as regular video ads, the publisher creates it own content and uploads it to Amazon for the Video Widget. There are many advantages to this approach: first, publishers with existing content (take for example video game reviews) can now directly monetize video content with Amazon in the player, instead of having to place links around the video player like before. Second, it opens up a world of content creating possibilities for the publishers who get a chance to produce unique and differentiated content.

Who said ‘09 was going to be boring!

Below - the Wii product page on Amazon.com, with video taking a large portion of the page. 

ShopNBC’s Video Commerce Endeavor Is Inspiring

When Justin Foster from the Video Commerce Consortium talked about ShopNBC’s video commerce experiments at Streaming Media West last fall, many of us were impressed by the vision and commitment from a company that’s been competing for years against the Home Shopping Network and QVC, but somewhat trailing behind. True, HSN and QVC still retain the lead in terms for marketshare and brand awareness, but ShopNBC.tv has taken a clear lead in the nascent video commerce space with a site that’s designed as an entirely new channel.

It’s not hard to find ShopNBC.tv. Personally, I’m seeing the ads popping all over the place on the internet, like this prominent and wide banner on WebWorkerDaily, one of my favorite blogs.

The site itself has been carefully built as a new destination site, using Flash as the presentation layer. After landing on it, you are immediately taken into the video experience, since it’s streaming the TV content live, without needing to install or activate anything. Yes my friends, the homepage is boldly featuring live video content, which is sort of a powerful statement: this is video, this is ShopNBC.tv.

The navigation on the site is innovative too. Unlike many ecommerce destinations nowadays, which feature countless links to site sections, departments, brands, etc, ShopNBC.tv is betting on a simplified shopping experience with simple yet intuitive rollover menus that allow you to shop by category, brand or host. The search is also elegantly designed and consistent with other elements on this page. Also impressive the fact that the video never stops playing, all navigational content is overlayed right on the page without any interruption.

Interesting also what happens when the user is ready to buy a product - as the click button is redirecting the user to the ultra-elaborate ShopNBC.com, and the most seamless fashion.

On the critical side, the biggest concern would be the extensive use of Flash, which limits SEO visibility and linking (everything happens under the same URL). Another limitation, which I am sure will be overcome soon, is the lack of social media features which would enable sharing across blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.Nevertheless, what an amazing shopping experience. ShopNBC.tv will no doubt be the benchmark for many video retailers moving forward:

1. ShopNBC.tv was designed as a new destination site, with its own identity and user experience.

2. ShopNBC.tv is a true video shopping site. Video is the center of the shopping experience, and ShopNBC.tv doesn’t make any excuses about it.

3. ShopNBC.tv is the innovator to follow. We are not aware of any similar project in the industry that marries video and commerce so well.

8 great commerce video production tips

Holding the camera’s the easy part! Here are some tips to speed up the editing process and increase your video production productivity.

1. Buy a good camera

There are dozens of good cameras available on the market to create your videos. One thing to keep in mind if the fact that videos on your site will typically be 320×240 pixels, which do not require high-definition. However, we recommend buying good camera (HD typically) because they will give you more editing options. Also, try to get a camera with a hard-drive, as opposed to tapes.

2. Use a microphone

Sound is an important part of your videos. You need to use a mike at all times when recording your clips. Wireless or wired mikes typically run under $100. It’s an excellent investment.

3. Prepare what you’re going to say

It’s good to be spontaneous but your imagination and creativity will likely wear off after you have assembled a few videos for your site. Prepare your points ahead of time for each video, and try to be concise when delivering your message.

4. Limit to number of products or points per video

Your viewers have limited attachment span and in general, it’s best to limit sequences to 1 or 2 minutes when filming for eCommerce applications.

5. Starting and stopping the camera

If you are filming product video clips, start filming your anchor a few seconds before she starts talking, then stop a few seconds after she’s done. This will give you some additional editing flexibility down the road.

6. Single-sequence clips work well

When presenting a product you may decide to cut your video clip in two sequences (general frame then zoomed-in), sometimes even more. A highly effective approach that’s been successfully implemented with our clients is to shoot single-sequence clips instead. These are generally shorter, more focused - and it also greatly increases the number of videos you will be able to create a day.

7. Use noise reduction

Even with a good mike you will still need to do some noise reduction on your clips while editing. Adobe Premiere has an excellent Noise Cancelation feature that works perfectly for clearing out all the background noise.

8. Take lots of notes while filming

Another great productivity idea! Write down some basic information about any clip sequence you are filming. Simple notes such as “Keep”, “Delete”, “Not sure if this will work on the site” will save your editors tons of time since in a typical production day you’ll create hundreds of small clips.