I used to think of an online retailer as a company that sold products and services on its web site.

Now, I’m not so sure.  I started thinking about this after I saw Karmaloop’s online video effort and then blogged about it. Now, I’m diving into things like Borders’ Books & Music’s efforts at bordersmedia.com or Amazon.com’s new shopping experience at windowshop.com. If you haven’t seen Amazon’s effort yet – do.  It’s super innovative.  Start consuming some of the media and you begin to wonder… is this a retailer or an entertainment…

Last week, I met with Kerry Murdock (Founder, Publisher, Editor of Practical eCommerce) to discuss video commerce best practices.  If you’re interested in listening to the podcast, you can find it here. It’s about 15 minutes long, so you might just want to put it on in the background while doing other work!

I also wanted to point out a couple of other recent articles on online video for e-commerce.  One was written by Jennifer Meacham of Practical eCommerce on Nov 19, “Video Boosts Online Sales, Merchants Confirm.” The article points…

There is a lot of enthusiasm in the market about the use of online video in a retail environment.  Still, many retailers struggle to transform that enthusiasm into action.  In order for video commerce to grow within your organization, try to remember the following:

1) Online video has implications for multiple functional areas of your e-commerce business.  Carefully weigh the benefits and risks of a ‘go it alone’ strategy.  The most successful video commerce initiatives have broad organizational support.

2) Collect formal case studies and directional evidence of video’s impact across functional areas of your business to help sell your…

I was surfing around tonight when I discovered an Akamai whitepaper released this September called ”Online Video: The New Merchandising.” (there’s a link to download the whitepaper at the end of this post).

Being my typical jaded self, I pretty much expected this was going to be a super-slanted vendor whitepaper that completely twisted reality to suit the vendor’s own selfish aims.  But, I was somewhat surprised.  While the whitepaper certainly did live out that expectation in some regards, it contained a lot of useful material – useful enough that I wanted to call some of it out here for this community. …

Part 2: Video Commerce – Don’t Forget the Commerce Part!

Using video search engine optimization (SEO) to drive more customers to your web site.

As I sat down to write Part II in this series of blog posts on using video for e-commerce, I was quite surprised to find such a wealth of knowledge already on the Internet focused on best practices for implementing video SEO.  So, rather than introducing any “groundbreaking” video SEO techniques in this post, I will attempt to distill some of the top-level best practices already out there into an easily digestible format, link you to…

On May 5, 2009, the VCC will hold an organized discussion on video commerce for the Shop.org annual online marketing workshop.  This will be a ‘down and dirty’ session that covers winning tactics to manage a successful video commerce program.

I’ve been a longtime member of Shop.org and really admire the work they’ve done in the online and multi-channel retail space.  The events are typically geared to a more senior audience and advanced discussion.  I’m excited to represent the VCC there.  If you would like to help with the discussion by participating as a panelist, feel free to…

On Thursday, January 22, 2009, the Video Commerce Consortium will host a webinar, “The ROI of Online Video.”

The webinar is perfect for e-commerce professionals, online marketers, product managers, affiliate managers, usability experts, technologists, and video production experts who may be contemplating launching or expanding a video commerce program in 2009.  It will cover actual case studies from online retailers that are already successfully generating positive ROI from video commerce, pitfalls to avoid in a video program launch or expansion, and a series of ROI strategies to manage costs and maximize revenues for program planning, management, and measurement.

You…

After interviewing over fifty e-commerce retailers from the Internet Retailer Top 500 List about the current state of their video commerce programs, it became clear to me that online marketers, merchandisers, affiliate managers, product managers, technologists, and executives are all intensely interested in learning more about video commerce.   At the same time, I see people craving more information about how to limit the risk of getting started with online video while maximizing its impact and effectiveness on the top line and bottom line. Hence, I decided to write a whitepaper you can download here:  Building an Effective Video…