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

This week, eMarketer cites a study by InternetRetailer which reveales that already 41.4% of all Top 500 online retailers are present on YouTube. That’s the second most used social site after Facebook where more than 57% of retailers are trying to do business.

So far social networking sites have been seen by many retailers as part of a multiple-points-of-entry strategy to the e-commerce site. That’s where we wanted to attract the traffic to because that’s where the user is less distracted by other offers. At least, that used to be the common belief. But the article points out an interesting fact that will make us rethink this “single- point-of transaction” strategy” again, especially for those retailers using video for selling.

Shopping is (and always was) a social act, so it’s common sense to let people shop among their friends at their favourite social networking sites.  That’s why forward-thinking retailers want to bring their Web stores to the environments where their customers like to spend time. As a result, almost three-quarters of the merchants in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide have a presence on at least one of the major social networks or social shopping sites.

I think in the future we will have to think much harder about how to integrate the transaction into the video content or player in order to reduce clicks and make online shopping an even better user experience - even if that means that customers don’t drop by our shopping site. Let’s see how long it takes YouTube and other social network and video sharing sites to become transactional.