One Week Until Mother's Day - Websites from 05/03/08

Macy's & J.C. Penney have prominent Mother's Day sale events. (Screenshot below.)

Another 27 sites are quickly viewable in the Picasa album below or on flickr. Everything from ShopBop "haute mama" celebrity mom inspired theme to sweets and flowers.

Do You YouTube? Most Retailers Say No.

I remember working on Victoria's Secret email program in the late nineties, and it was SUCH a big deal to get video done. Now individuals, and small companies can get in the mix. YouTube has made it easy. So now retailers CAN do video easily & at low cost, but most don't. Here are a couple of examples I've seen lately.

I looked at about 1000 sites (the week of 1/26), and came up with only two sites where YouTube was a visible part of their home page. The sites were:

1-800-Flowers with their "Greatest Love Story" contest and

Urban Outfitters who has used YouTube for several weeks in different capacities.

Most of the DRTV sites use some type of streaming video as part of their user experience. For example see:

Jewelry TV

QVC HSN

Shop@home

Shopnbc

YouTube in Emails

Shari's Berries used a YouTube video as the prominent feature of their 2/7/08 email. Subject line: "Watch the Video, New Gund Frog Sings My Girl, Save 20% ".

Email (click to enlarge screenshot)




Landing Page (click to enlarge screenshot)



Here's a live link to the landing page if you want to watch the video.

Read More...
If you are interested in using YouTube on your site, see also

STORES Magazine: Do YouTube?

YouTube for E-Tailers: Tips, Camcorder Reviews

Shop.org Blog - Look whos's marketing on YouTube!

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.}