Impact of Videos on E-Commerce

I just read an interesting article on Internet Retailer that said 80% of consumers take some kind of action after viewing online video ads. That included:

• 31% checked out the web site after watching the video
• 22% searched for more info about the product or service
• 15% went to the store
• 12% actually made the purchase

Also, out of people that made a purchase last month:

• 48% said the internet drove their initial awareness.
• 57% said they learned more about their potential purchase using the internet
• 55% used the internet to determine best price and where to buy

All these stats are pretty interesting. But I am still not seeing a lot of internet retailers offering video to help them sell their products yet. I spoke with a VP of e-commerce at an IR 100 company last night and he thought it would make a lot of sense for them to implement videos to better showcase the quality of the products they are selling. I agree.

One company based in Utah called Blendtec does a fun/smart job promoting their TotalBlender online which sells for $399. They post a lot of videos on the site of their CEO blending random objects. Just as one example and because I'm a big baseball fan, here is the CEO blending a baseball. The option to buy the blender is at the bottom right hand corner of the site.

And for more video reviews, check out ExpoTV, a site focused on letting users create videos with their own reviews. I think over time, we will see more internet retailers posting videos and probably pulling in user generated videos into their sites as they look for ways to further increase sales.