Shoppable Videos

One advantage the brick and mortar stores provides to customers is the ‘touch and feel’ of the product. E commerce stores fill the gap by providing a video on the page where the product is listed. The video shows the product from different angles, unpacking, tutorials and usage in real life scenario. In fact, the study Memory for moving and static images cites that “recognition memory for moving images is consistently superior to that for equivalent static images”.

Going one step further, while watching the video if the customer is able to interact with it, it will definitely leave a unique impression in the customer’s mind. For example, if a customer searches for latest phone with best camera on Youtube and the video she comes across, has an external annotation, clicking which will take her directly to a webpage with buying options. Marks and Spencer TV is a good example of videos with external annotation giving an option to the customer watching the video to click and buy.

One drawback is by clicking external annotations, the video is paused and viewer is taken to another webpage which definitely interrupts the viewing experience. To resolve this, Temperley London and Net-a-Porter came up with a video of “Temperley’s Enchanting Summer Party”. Here, customer while watching the models dancing, can click on their dress and accessories they like. Clicking doesn’t affect the running of the video. Clicked items gets collected in a shopping cart on the bottom right of the window and once the video is finished, customers have an option to view items in the cart, see the details of the items there and consequently buy the items.

E commerce businesses can think of combining Shoppable Video with Real Time Customization to ensure customer only watches what they want to watch and buy on the spot.