STORES Magazine - October 2008 - (Page 67)

NUTS AND BOLTS / E-COMMERCE Getting Personal philosophy.com boosts traffic and sales by encouraging shoppers to share their stories BY LAURI GIESEN E veryone has a story to tell. For retailers, letting customers share their stories online can provide an opportunity to attract more shoppers to their websites, spend more time there and, ultimately, increase Internet sales. When cosmetics and beauty products stories about their mother-and-daughter retailer philosophy approached Austin, relationships and share a little about Texas-based Bazaarvoice last January, it their mothers’ personal philosophy; parwas looking for a platform that its onticipants could post pictures with their line customers could use to rate and reentries. Customers then voted for the view products they had purchased on best story among the more than 1,000 philosophy.com. Bazaarvoice executives entries, and the winner received a introduced philosophy to the Stories $1,200 online shopping spree. program. In addition to promoting the contest With Stories, customers can share on its website, philosophy sent e-mails their experiences with other shoppers. to customers in its database; The stories are typically related to the some of the retailer’s cotypes of products sold on a website, but branded partners eare not related to the promotion of a specific product. For example, cus80% more page views tomers at a hard20% larger average tickets ware site can discuss home repair 19% more items or remodeling experiences; apparel-store customers can discuss how their new dress or suit went over at a party. Sarah Superfon, director of interactive marketing and direct response for philosophy, says the Stories concept was a natural fit for the company that describes itself as “a lifestyle brand that celebrates feeling well and living joyously.” “The idea of letting customers share their stories struck a chord with us,” she says. “It was a great platform for our customers.” philosophy began using Stories as part of its Mother’s Day sales promotion. Customers were encouraged to tell mailed their customers to tell them about the promotion, as well. To tie the promotion to sales, customers at the Stories page could click back and learn about Mother’s Day gift ideas. The promotion was “not about sales directly, but rather about increasing our website traffic,” Superfon says. And it did just that: philosophy found that 39 percent of all website traffic during May came via the Stories page. More important, perhaps, 33 percent of all new visitors arrived via the Stories page, and those who came via the Stories page spent more time on the website than did other customers. philosophy is investigating other types of stories its customers can tell. “We’re still in development with this and testing different campaign ideas,” Superfon says. The retailer is looking at both seasonal-related story campaigns, such as the Mother’s Day one, as well as ongoing story opportunities that are Stories’ Story WWW.STORES.ORG STORES / OCTOBER 2008 67 http://www.philosophy.com http://www.philosophy.com http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - October 2008

STORES Magazine - October 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Force of a Different Collar What Shoppers Think Bagging the Competition 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Favorite 50 Sticky Strategies for Retention Concept2Watch Kiosks Online Business Intelligence RFID NRFtech Wrap-up E-Commerce Credit Warehouse Systems Logistics Selling Tools Supply Chain LOEB Retail Letter Arts Update Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - October 2008

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