Valentine's Flowers

Flowers are also big this time of year.

1800Flowers
1800Flowers has done a really nice job. I really like the YouTube sweepstakes. Very creative. I'm seeing a number of cutting edge marketers start to use YouTube. (For exampl, Urban Outfitters uses on their home page, Jewelery TV has a channel.)



The 800# is part of the name. Not good": email address signup is at the bottom of a long page. (See slide show at the end of this post.)

Completely Above The Fold
ProFlowers, FTD and JustFlowers have designed their websites to be completely above the fold on the common 1024 x 768 browser.

Email Signup
Is above the fold for ProFlowers, Teleflora and FTD. FTD putting their signup at the top of the page. Calyx & Corolla has a simple "Join our Email" in the footer, making it nearly invisible.

800 Number
Is prominent for 1800Flowers, FTD, ProFlowers, Just Flowers, Flowers Across America. Calyx & Corolla has no 800 number on the home page.

Here are the top sites mentioned above in a slide show. {Click slide show below to view individual screen shots of each website.}

Email Signup Thank You Page - Shop.org

I signed up for the Shop.org SmartBrief today, and I thought they did a nice job on the "thank you" page confirming my subscription.

- They showed what the newsletter would look like, and what errors might look like
- They had a link to the current version
- The top navigation provided links to
- Forward to a friend
- Provide feedback
- Browse issue archive via a calendar
- Search archive

I hope the member of the NRF and shop.org look at this example, and find ways to incorporate some of these practices into their own practices.

Valentine's Chocolates

Chocolate is big this time of year. Here are the a couple of the top sites in a slide show. {Click slide show below to view individual screen shots of each website.}

If you look at each there are a couple things that stand out.

800 Number Placement

Top
See's puts theirs at the top, twice.
Mrs. Fields also puts hers at the top.

Footer. Dean & Deluca and eleni go for the footer.

None. ethel's, Fannie May,Godiva, Hershey's, Mrs. Beasleys, Cheryl & co,Swiss Colony

Email Signup

Best. See's. Top position, prominent graphics. Links to privacy policy and sample email.

Good.
Mrs. Fields. Top position, 10% discount. No privacy policy or sample link.
Fannie May. Bottom, but prominent graphics and link to "Why signup?"

OK
Dean & Deluca. Top position, but almost invisible white on white.
Bottom of fold for elenis, Godiva, Cheryl & Company, Swiss Colony

None
ethel's, Hershey's, Mrs. Beasleys

Big 15 Retailers - 2008-01-26

Wal-Mart's home page this week and last had a large portion of real estate devoted to Valentine's day. Most of the other big retailers did not.

Wal-Mart home page 1/26/08.




Slide show of the 15 big retailers for 1/26/08.

Closed for Valentine's - Jeweler Bailey Banks & Biddle

I find it odd that a jeweler would "close" their website for inventory just prior to what must be one of their best shopping seasons.

Update Email Address Pop-Ups

I see pop-ups like this all the time on airline and online travel agent sites. But I almost never see this on retail sites.

In this Delta example, they recognized they had an expired address once I had logged in. You could of course do this even without a login using cookies.

If you have examples of retailers doing this, please post in the comments or email me.

Big 10 Retailers - 2008-01-12

I'm experimenting with new ways to present the weekly changes of the top internet retails sites. This PowerPoint is a comparison of 01/12/08 to the prior week 01/05/08 for ten of the top sites.

Download PowerPoint

Amazon Jewelry - This week Amazon devoted nearly half of their home page selling space to jewelry. Just in time for Valentine's day. The other big ad is for their Tax Central.

Ten companies reviewed are : Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, Hewlett-Packard, J.C. Penney, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Target, Williams-Sonoma.

Urban Outfitters Innovation

I noticed a couple of things on Urban Outfitters site this week that I thought others would be interested in.

1. The use of YouTube video on the home page. (Also posted on YouTube. Thus far few f
2. Mobile marketing signup is more prominent than email.
3. Horizontal blog.

YouTube. Interesting way to share content created for the site. They have a channel on YouTube. So far only 3161 views since April 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/uotv





Mobile Signup
Here's a copy of their signup form.


Horizontal Geo Blog
They have an interesting way to display their blog content. Very visual, filter by location, and scroll is horizontal.
http://blog.urbanoutfitters.com/