An entrepreneurial evening
I had an opportunity to catch up with a friend of mine this evening over drinks/dinner before he and his fiance move off to Colorado to continue building their online startup: foodzie.com. Foodzie is one of 10 very fortunate and well-deserving startups that will receive seed money and mentoring from some of the industry's finest all thanks to TechStars.
The premise behind foodzie is to provide artisan food producers with the means for selling their products online with minimal investment. On top of that, foodzie will build a community of "foodies" who will have an opportunity for "one stop shopping" online. Their site will be launching soon (presumably in beta after they settle into their new digs in Colorado) and I'm very excited to see how it will take off.
Not being a die-hard "foodie" myself, my wife and I are certainly more of a "mass consumer" at heart as we purchase based on ease and convenience due to our busy schedules. That being said, foodzie presents an opportunity for even non-foodies like us to indulge in the latest in greatest without having to be die-hard foodies. Whenever business models like these come to fruition and take a complex process, make it simple, and bring it to the masses, it is a recipe for success.
It was a great change of pace to talk entrepreneurial strategy -- which is a completely different type of discussion than the day-to-day enterprise strategy discussion.
Good luck to Rob and Emily on their venture!
Levolor.com E-commerce Press Release
In light of Levolor.com exiting the beta stage, we've distributed a press release with high-level details of the "new" online store available on the site.
This release made the rounds beginning on 2/18/08. While I didn't personally anticipate much coverage from the release (outside of the blinds & shades industry, releases like this get a "So, what?" reaction), it's interesting to see the increased traffic from visitors from North Carolina. Presumably, because we're based in North Carolina, the local publications picked up the press release and the information resonated more with consumers who happened to come across the release in their home state.
One thing which I still don't understand is why press releases on most sites (like our release at Internet Retailer), don't hyperlink our website address, or better yet, even provide our web address. It's funny to see an industry publication not only whiddle down a press release, but also ignore the very features and functionality that make the Internet what it is.
Levolor.com out of beta
I'm happy to announce that Levolor.com has finally left the realm of being in "beta." We ran the site in its beta form for a little over 6 months and just rolled the first round of updates and fixes (since leaving beta) to the site last week. Here's an overview of what's new:
New Products Added:
As we begin to expand our web presence, we are also beginning to add our full line of products to the website (though only custom blinds & shades may be purchased online). "Blinds, Shades, & Drapery Hardware" is the tagline under the logo on the website and you can now find all of this product information under the "products" tab on the website.
New Product Page Layouts:
We've also updated our product pages to reflect the content and end-user experience found in our in-store sample books. This combines beautiful room scene photography with nice, large pictures of product options, and best of all, videos to help describe product options.
Online Store
Our online store now features all of our custom blinds and shades. During our beta period, we only offered a limited selection of products.
What was learned during the beta period
I'm normally opposed to plastering "BETA" across the heading of a website because it's become more a buzz word than anything in the online industry. Everything seems to be launched in Beta and because it's in Beta, it gets more hype from online bugs for one reason or another. That being said, I'm glad we did it because end-users were more understanding if something went wrong on the website during the beta period. I was actually surprised to see how many consumers shopping for our products mention the "Beta" moniker in their comments.
Consumers are browsing online first
What we didn't expect was a backlash from consumers who couldn't find all of our product information online. Even though we don't sell a large portion of our products on our website, it didn't seem to matter -- consumers wanted the information on the site. This is not necessarily specific to us but is really a trend in consumer shopping habits across the board. Not everyone goes online to purchase, they are going online to research so they can be educated before they purchase.
Consumers are arming themselves with information (because the store associate doesn't have the knowledge)
In our retail channels (big box stores), store associates are hard to come by and they are not always experts in the area of the store you happen to flag them down in (ever grabbed the "electrical guy" at Home Depot who happened to be passing through the patio furniture display?). Being armed with full product information and narrowing down your options between one or two final products that you'd like to take a look at in store before purchasing seems to be the trend these days.
This really comes as no surprise as my wife and I do the same thing. Recently we purchased a Dyson vacuum, researched it on the Dyson website, and went to Best Buy (retail store) to close the purchase after we compared two models in the store. Naturally, the "car audio manager" helped us and did nothing more than read the description of the product off of the box as we asked questions about the two models we were interested in. About all he was good for was helping with the honoring of the online price from bestbuy.com (which was cheaper than the in-store price).
Beta launches are a Good Thing
Despite my reservations about jumping on the Beta bandwagon, the Beta period helped us understand more of what consumers were looking for on our website and this has fueled the online effort. I would recommend releasing a site in "Beta" if it encompasses major changes for consumers -- they'll be understanding and will be a bit more candid if they run across a problem or frustration. The general public is becoming more familiar with what "Beta" means.
Next steps for Levolor.com
While I won't outline the roadmap for Levolor.com, I'll continue to post updates as we make major updates to the site. For now, we'll just focus on incremental improvements now that all of our custom blinds and shades are available online for sale.
More Comparison Shopping Woes
As we continue to fine-tune the usability and comparison shopping on our site, I'm also paying close attention to how other manufacturers are executing as well.
After traveling over the past few weeks, I've been privy to sleeping on several different beds in hotels, friend's homes, and family members' homes. My wife and I need a new bed as ours has developed half-pipe indentations (who really enjoys flipping and rotating a king-size mattress every month?).
Tempur-Pedic has been pouring money into marketing dollars on this half of the year -- at least I feel like we've been seeing their ads more often (certainly more than the Sleep Number bed). For some reason I just cannot mentally buy into the sleep number bed, so I took a gander at the Tempur-Pedic offering this morning on their website. I never knew buying a bed was so confusing. Let's start at the product page for their "sleep systems":
Wow, 9 different beds to choose from just based on the primary feature alone. They've at least given them unique names, but I have no idea which one is right for me. Oh wait, there's a comparison option, great, let's check that out:
Ouch, look at all of these options and names that mean absolutely nothing to me. What is the difference between a Quilted TEMPUR-HD and a Quiltend TEMPUR "comfort layer? What about the diference between the Grand AirFlow System and T-Flex Support System as the base layer? Can these options not be combined? What if I want both of them in one bed?
Comparison Shopping Flaws
The fatal flaw this website makes is that it does not SELL me on the "WHY?". It is a brochure which assumes intimate knowledge of the differences in products and what each of the features means (it comes across as an assisted-sale tool for sales people). The comparison page should add clarity to the products offered, not additional confusion. If there are confusing terminologies and/or features, then at least provide pop-up windows or links to definitions of the features that provide feature and benefit statements for the consumer. This Tempur-Pedic comparison page does neither.
How we're testing comparison shopping
We have an initial implementation of comparison shopping between product models of blinds and shades. The added benefit we provide are descriptions of product options listed on the comparison page.
I've received more information from a commercial about the Tempur-Pedic "sleep system" than I did on their website.
Additionally, pricing is also available on our page, too, so the consumer can determine if they are even in the right ballpark for their budget. This was another thing I noticed that was missing from the Tempur-Pedic comparison page -- I have no idea what the cost ranges are for their product. While I expect to spend a decent amount of money, I'm unable to determine generally what that amount is going to be. Do you shop for cars online without seeing the price? Probably not.
Provide the context in which the feature is beneficial to the consumer
One thing I've found is marketers are not the best salesmen. They do a great job at drawing you into the store to take a look at the product, but a big part of online marketing is also selling. I expected to go to the Tempur-Pedic site to find exactly the right bed for me based on the features and benefits of those features of their various offerings. All I've taken away is that there are 9 models and I probably need to go to a store to find out more information from a real salesmen on which bed is right for me. Frustrating.
We're getting there, but it's not perfect...yet
While I don't believe we have perfected the model in our online store, we are certainly learning from consumers, soliciting feedback, and analyzing site usage reports to determine how people are currently shopping vs. how they want to shop. Manfacturing companies like us tend to be far too feature-focused instead of being benefit focused. This is forcing companies like ours and like Tempur-Pedic to change their method of selling and marketing of products -- which is a good thing.
I think many companies get in their own way when trying to communicate to the consumer -- this further stresses the importance of usability testing both from a site architecture standpoint as well as a marketing/selling standpoint. The site may be fully usable, but at the end of the day, is it influencing a sale or better yet, is it converting a browser to a buyer? Tempur-Pedic has yet to convert me.
Levolor Beta Updates
It's been a busy month and-a-half since my last post and I wanted to post some information on our ongoing beta on Levolor.com. The beta test will wrap up at the end of September and it has been a very successful test thus far. Here are some of the latest enhancements to the site since my initial post on the launch of the beta.
We launched a nation-wide advertising campaign on August 20th, 2007. This is the first time we've advertised on television since 1987. Combined with the TV campaign, we've launched an online banner campaign, continued with search engine marketing, and also updated the homepage of the website to reflect the new campaign spots. You can visit www.levolor.com to watch all four TV spots.
Through the use of nifty ajax utilization, we've added a dedicated "store" tab which allows consumers to shop product models by category, filter by multiple categories, and view pricing based on a custom width and height for their window.
The two most helpful tools in this improvement process have been the OpinionLab tool and Omniture's SiteCatalyst tool. Relying on data to make website improvements is becoming so much more critical these days. I remember back in 2005 we launched a new SuperMotors.net facelift to the site and our users absolutely hated it. Had we done simple A/B testing with it prior to launching it, it would have been a completely different story. We would have learned from our mistakes prior to alienating thousands of site visitors.
Blog by Eric Long
I'm an experienced digital product & marketing strategist and am passionate about providing outstanding cross-channel, mass customization (product configurators), and considered-purchase experiences.
About Eric Long
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