How is Amazon Selling you the Kindle? (Hint: starts with a “V”)
Like Apple, Amazon is aggressively spreading video across its product pages to pump up conversions and educate its users for its top selling product: the Kindle. eRetailers take note.
Even in this economy, the Kindle is going to be the hot Christmas gift for many Americans this year. It’s been predicted that Amazon will sell over a million Kindles before 2009, making this new toy one of the most successful new electronics product launches since the iPod. A billion dollar opportunity, according to some.
Make no mistake about it - the Kindle is a big opportunity for Amazon.com and naturally, the web experience team must have invested countless dollars on the product page to make sure it converts. And — oh what a surprise — a video of the Kindle is taking a prominent location on the product detail page.
This is a major shift from traditional product detail pages, where traditionally, the left side of the product page is occupied by static images, and sometimes a 3D view of the product. Confident that the video is more persuasive, Amazon chose to replace the classic images and feature the video instead, a bold move I’m sure has been validated with rigorous A/B testing.
 |
There is a lot more - I was particularly impressed with these features which I think are terribly missing from many video retailers that I come across: - The ability to share the video - The subtle use of music in the video - The clever use of captioning to stress key selling points - A clear call the action at the end, with an HTTP link - User review scores and other important link right underneath the video in support of the purchasing decisionI get a sense that this type of product presentation will be copied over and over again in the next few years. After all, Amazon.com has pioneered important eCommerce innovations in the past and seems to always be one step ahead of the competition.This is exciting, to say the least. |
» Want to be featured on VideoRetailer.org? Suggest a Site Now.
October 16th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Great post. We have a few case studies on the video commerce consortium that also back the claim that video on the product page increases conversion rates. MarketingSherpa released a case study a few weeks ago by Circuit City. Ebags also launched a case study indicating in an A/B test that video increases conversion rate when video is placed on the product page. They also have a video SEO case study. A few well-known shop-from-home TV station web sites have experienced great success with video on the product page.
One thing I did want to mention re: the Amazon Kindle video is that it’s professionally produced. Most retailers I speak with involved in video are producing it in-house, at low cost, with a predominant focus on demonstration/how-to and educational videos, and a secondary focus on promotional videos, and tertiary focus on entertainment videos. Video not being produced in-house is acquired through customers and suppliers.
It has always been possible to spend a lot of $$ producing online video. One of the three primary forces enabling video commerce is the relatively new availability of extreme low-cost production coupled with the ability to quickly distribute videos across a rapidly expanding array of distribution channels.
October 17th, 2008 at 2:27 am
[...] How is Amazon Selling you the Kindle? (Hint: starts with a “V”) - Video Retailer [...]
October 21st, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Justin —
Thanks for your comment. Interesting point indeed, there is always going to be a debate about quality vs quantity in the video commerce world. The reason I think is because we are surrounded by examples of wildly successful viral videos that cost nothing to produce. You gave me an idea for our next post. Stay tuned.
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
[...] 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 [...]