To piggyback on that post, there was recent article in MediaPost that highlighted some research conducted during the holiday season. To synthesize the findings:

• Online video e-commerce company Invodo said that its online retail partners saw a 9 times increase in video views on their sites at the start of the just-completed holiday shopping season.
• The jump is likely due to increased sharing, as well as growing usage and interest in video to help make shopping decisions.
• Facebook and email each comprised about 43% of sharing of product videos via social networks on Cyber Monday.
• Retailers reported that customers who watch a product video are more than twice as likely to add that product to their cart.
• Forrester has said that video on a site greatly improves the search results. “Any given video in the index stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page in the index.”
• comScore has reported that shoppers who watch video spend more time on a site (not surprisingly since it takes time to watch a video), but are also 64% more likely to buy compared to others. That’s a promising stat as it shows videos are converting browsers into buyers. Read more

“Wow. That’s pretty damn impressive,” I thought to myself. Product video as a marketing tool is getting a lot of love from digital marketing writers and bloggers. At lot of that love may be because online video –  in the form of product review and demos – has gained traction on large e-Commerce sites; companies like Overstock, Amazon, HSN, Nike and Target have all incorporated video as a part of their e-Commerce sales strategy. If you haven’t seen anything like this yet, here’s an example from Zappos:

And another from one of our clients, Theodora & Callum:

One reason that product videos are being adopted so quickly among marketers has to do with the technology –  many consumers have the fast connections and computers required to display videos without stalling, or buffering, and also that video production has become quicker and easier. But the most compelling reason for high adoption rates, for me at least, is the proof from research reports like the one from MediaPost’s article indicating that videos increase conversion over the same product pages that have only static images.

Where does your e-Commerce website stand on the video as a product demo? Are you finding success with it? Let me know in the box below.

PAPYRUS believes in embracing all that life has to offer. Founded in the family kitchen of Marcel and Margrit Schurman in 1950, the nation-wide card store offers an ever-expanding array of products including custom printed announcements, products for entertaining, greeting cards, gift wrap, gift bags, stationery, note cards, journals and unique gift products. All of it inspired by a love of fine art

PAPYRUS’ Sweetest Creation.

PAPYRUS wanted to redesign their custom printing website. The previous version used older technology which caused problems in the User Experience, CMS and data feeds. It also wasn’t part of their main website, so it needed to be integrated.

The card customizer, the centerpiece of the custom site, needed to meet several technical and user requirements. From a technical perspective, it had to organize product SKUs in their Magento e-Commerce platform efficiently to maintain the site performance rather than have to sift through thousands of products to return results, it had to account for a complex pricing structure stemming from different potential quantities, customizations and vendors, it had to be easily updated when new products and features became available and it had to be robust enough to allow flexibility in the creative design process that PAPYRUS wanted to provide. From a User Experience perspective, the card customizer needed to be intuitive and simple, allowing the visitor nearly complete creative capability while navigating through the design process without getting lost along the way. And it needed to be available for use on an iPad.

Celebrate the joy of everyday.

SD decided to use JavaScript after having fully explored all the requirements of the card customizer. In particular, cross-browser compatibility and card type-fonts that weren’t typical in the web world helped support this decision. In building the site, we used technology that adhered to current web standards and incorporated coding that won’t be outdated anytime soon.

The result represents the future of custom card design by blurring the line between the virtual and physical world. Half customization tool, half online store, PAPYRUS Custom Printing invites anyone to be a designer.

SD is tracking the usage of the custom printing website, and the preliminary data suggests that there will be tremendous growth over the next few months. After the initial spike in traffic from launch promotions, traffic to the card customizer has consistently increased and has doubled its unique daily visitors in just under a month.

Their previous custom site used old technology and wasn’t integrated into their main site, which is reason enough for a complete redesign. Factor in  outdated CMS, incompatible data feeds, and limited features that couldn’t be changed and you’ve got an e-Commerce UX nightmare.

We knew this was going to be a big job when PAPYRUS first approached us with it, but we had no idea how big it was going to end up becoming. The card customizer, the crux of custom printing, needed to start with a base card or invitation and then allow the visitor to change the wording, the fonts, the ink color and the location of the content. It also needed to allow the visitor to add different motifs and monograms if they wanted and choose different printing techniques, envelope liner colors, and order quantities. While all this is going on, the user needs to be able to navigate the creative process without getting lost. Oh, and one last thing – it needed to work on an iPad.

From a technical perspective, there were several relatively major hurdles to overcome to make the site work properly and efficiently. This site had to organize products in the Magento e-Commerce platform without having to sift through 100’s of thousands of potential SKUs (which slows down processing times), it needed to factor in a complex pricing structure due to different card features that could be customized, and it needed to be updated quickly and easily if new styles or effects became available.

After considering the technical part, we looked at the user experience and identified programs that would make this card customizer function the way PAPYRUS wanted it. When we talked about cross-browser compatibility, type-fonts on cards that weren’t standard in the web world, and iPad usability it became clear that JavaScript was the answer.

The result represents the future of custom card design by blurring the line between the virtual and physical world. Half customization tool, half online store, PAPYRUS Custom Printing invites anyone to be a designer.

Job Description

Qualified candidates will have experience in PHP, HTML, CSS, and Javascript stack and be able to take user requirements and turn them into workable web applications.  You will be part of a nimble team working in an aggressive, fast-paced environment.  You’ll help with requirements gathering and participate on product design.  The Magento-Wordpress Developer will be taking tasks from our project/maintenance queue and working with the guidance of our technical leadership.  These tasks will range from front-end work, to platform configuration, to back-end code development.  You will work in a local development environment where you and the senior developer can review code before it is pushed to our staging site for QA review.

Specifically, you will be responsible for the following tasks (but not limited to):

• Full life-cycle website development
• Custom module maintenance and development
• Participate in requirements gathering and product design
• Deployment of new sites
• Improve existing sites

Essential Experience:

• Magento Commerce development experience (1+ years)
• Wordpress development experience (1+ years)
• PHP Development Experience (3+ Years)
• Expertise in HTML, CSS, AJAX and cross-browser layout issues (3 + Years)
• Comprehensive Javascript Knowledge (3+ Years)
• Relational database experience (3+ Years)
• Bachelors degree in computer science or related field
• Some professional software engineering experience, internship or otherwise
• Good communication skills, particularly with non-engineering colleagues
• Strong time management skills – ability to prioritize and meet deadlines
• Experience with Client scripting frameworks (JQuery / dojo / YUI)
• Experience using source control tools
• Background in an interactive agency a plus