Online video becomes priority for ecommerce websites, second only to social media
Published May 24, 2010
Online videos have gone beyond the bounds of YouTube and are increasingly being used in the ecommerce space, as digital marketing professionals find they are effective tools for increasing conversions and lowering shopping cart abandonment.
A recent study from eMarketer found that of the two-thirds of companies surveyed planning a site redesign in the next 12 months, 42.3 percent said they were planning to add video to their site. This makes online video the second-highest website priority behind social media, coming out ahead of advanced search capabilities, blogs or forums, customer reviews or ratings, and live chat.
This shift is not arbitrary, as companies are reporting that videos make their websites more effective.
"Retailers are making the case that videos boost their sales conversion rate, a measure of the increase in the percentage of shoppers who make a purchase after viewing a product video," said Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the report. "Retailers also claim videos reduce shopping cart abandonment rates and lower product return rates."
A November report from Forrester returned similar results, noting that 68 percent of the top 50 internet retailers were using video on their websites in 2009, up from 18 percent in 2008.