Email idea to steal: user-generated copy

Nearly every online shop now collects user reviews from satisfied, and sometimes not so satisfied, customers. Once the reviews are published on the site, what then?

Cashmere apparel cataloguer Brora has great idea for using online reviews to keep in touch with its customers by email. The “Brora Customer Favourites” email featured 10 items from the Brora collection that have attracted glowing references from customers. And it’s an easy idea to steal. Simply select a few of your best-selling items, or the ones with the best reviews—the copy has been written for you. --MT

Very ambivalent

Littlewoods Direct became Very on Sunday. No, a noun isn’t missing from that sentence. Shop Direct Group rebranded its Littlewoods Direct fascia, renaming it Very and radically overhauling its website. The goal is to attract and retain a young, upwardly mobile audience by offering loads of social-networking features as well as some hip new brands.

So, is the new website Very fabulous? Or is it Very much of a misfire? Or is it Very much a matter of much ado over nothing, or perhaps a work still Very much in progress? (Okay, I’ll stop now with the Very bad play on words—but really, with a name like Very, the brand is asking for it.)

Let’s start with the home page. The product categories are clearly delineated near the top, and in the centre of the page the links to “Hot holiday fashion”, “View our new and exclusive brands”, and “Top offers” are more prominent than that for “Introducing our network”. So far, so good. But could there be a stronger call to action to encourage sales? Absolutely. That the product shots on the home page are minimal, in both size and number, and there’s nothing that says, “Shop now” or “Like this skirt? Click here” hints at the drawbacks of having one website serve two apparent purposes: to engage via social networking and to sell product.

The social aspects of the site, in and of themselves, are fine. Product reviews, of course, have gone from being a nice-to-have to a must-have for consumer ecommerce sites, but Very uses a pleasingly thorough template for its reviews that sets them apart from most others. The product pages also include widgets that make it easy to post the items onto Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. The live chats with its celebrity designers such as Fearne Cotton, who created an exclusive range for Very, are a fun way to create buzz.

There’s also a forum, and a People networking section: You can sign up, fill out a questionnaire, follow other participants a la Twitter, post comments, and put together product “bundles”, such as outfits or room furnishings. It’s all very kicky, but I wonder if all these networking features will distract site visitors from shopping rather than encourage them to do so.

In the July issue of Catalogue e-business, PR and social-media expert Katy Howell, of Immediate Future, advises keeping community sites separate from transactional sites: “People go to online retailers to shop. For advice they will go elsewhere.”

And while there’s much to be said for making the online shopping experience more social, just as offline shopping is, making it too social could suppress sales. Think about the gaggles of teens you see at shopping centres, trying on sunglasses and hats, leafing through magazines, sampling CDs. How many of them buy much of anything other than sodas and sweets?--SC

The customer's voice

Here's a great example of a business that really appears to value its customers and their opinions. Yesterday, toys and novelties cataloguer/retailer Hawkin's Bazaar posted on Twitter that it was seeking contributions to update the introductory text on its website home page.

By asking customers to describe Hawkin's Bazaar in their own words, it will see exactly how the business is viewed through consumers' eyes--the adjectives they use, any recurring themes in their descriptions, how they would sum up the business in a paragraph, and so on. The insight garnered from this could be just as valuable as information obtained during a monitored focus group.

What I particularly admire about this tactic is that even if Hawkin's Bazaar doesn't end up using customer-generated copy, it was brave enough to ask for it--and via an unmoderated medium!
Let's hope it doesn't go the same way as a recent Neal's Yard Remedies Q&A in the Guardian.--MT

A howl of a product

Still not convinced that user reviews can boost traffic to and sales on your website? Then consider the current best-selling apparel item on Amazon.com: the Three Wolf Moon t-shirt.

You won't see this shirt featured in Vogue or in Harrods; as blogger Michael K of Dlisted (where I came across this marvel) writes, "don't act like you've never worn this shirt with denim cut-offs and wedge sandals while working the ho stroll in Panama City Beach, FL". Even Homer Simpson wouldn't wear this T, though Cletus definitely would.

The only reason this item could possibly have topped Amazon's apparel list has to be the product reviews--319 and counting.

A sampling: "After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women... The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called mehth. I told them no, because they didn't have enough teeth..."

"I am a member of Parliment and bought this T Shirt on my expenses. Since wearing this in the House, I have had a strange longing for roadkill and burgers..."

"So I tracked my package before I left for work today and realized that it would be delivered around 1pm. Around noon I told my manager my dad fell off a ladder and that I had to leave work to take him to the hospital. Pulling out of Taco Hell all I could think of was 3 Woof Moon shirt and where to make the public debut, and that 3WM would give me the guts to ask Tonya the deep fry girl to a drive-in movie tomorrow..."

"Before the 3 wolves and moon t-shirt I was just a crazy cat lady wearing 'hang in there' kitten t-shirts. Now that I wear my 3 wolves and moon t-shirt people definitely take me more seriously. Especially that lady that keeps calling from the electric company. If I'm really lucky I'll have the confidence to leave the house soon too..."

If Amazon had censored the comments--and many of them are much too rude for me to repeat here--there's no way it would have sold so many of these shirts. So let's chalk one up to the power of unadulterated user-generated content. And when you have a few minutes, check out some of the other comments on the shirt's product page. Just don't blame me if you fall under the spell of the three wolves and find yourself howling at the moon.--SC