Koko Bino is a tremendous example of successful niche marketing with their bright and inviting ecommerce shop - running on, you guessed it, … Elastic Path. This UK-based retailer sells project kits for making all manner of baby and toddler gear from fine yarn.

Knitters form a huge online community (as I learned at Moose Camp last year), and while often excused as a “low-tech” constituency, knitters interact with online projects, tips and tutorials as much as the most enthusiastic participants of any other hobby and yarn companies have entrenched themselves into the blogosphere by sponsoring high-profile knitting bloggers.

As they describe themselves:

A design collective? A new knitting philosophy?

Kokobino was born because we love to knit, especially for our - or actually anyone’s - babies and toddlers, but we couldn’t find the patterns to get us excited.

We wanted to create simple kits with real, modern designer patterns, the most beautiful colourful yarns, such as real cashmere and soft baby merino, interesting buttons and accessories all put together with the right needles, labels and all other equipment you might need to create a gorgeous Kokobino piece.

The best thing is you’ll definitely be able to do it - trust us, we had to knit the first range ourselves! Instructions are kept very clear and simple and we’ve created a little system that will not only tell you how easy a project is, but that will also indicate if it is going to take a lot or a little of your time.

If you ever drop a stitch, lose the plot or realize that what you’re knitting doesn’t quite resemble the picture, don’t despair. There’s help online! Look up your problem in the knitting tutorial and you’ll be on your way again before you know it.

They are doing the right things to embrace their customers and nurture a community. Design-wise, the site is clean with ample whitespace while at the same time colorful and cheery. The mix of graphics interacting with top-quality photographs is admirable and the page layouts are simple making navigation easy while reinforcing branding. They wisely incorporate suggestive selling with product info appearing when the shopper mouseovers the lifestyle shots on category pages - additionally, the shopper is offered cross-sells and up-sells on product pages. Also each product’s contents are clearly indicated so you know you’ve got all the materials you need to finish. The image previews respond quickly (handy for seeing detailed yarn textures and color choices) and they’ve utilized custom attributes to designate the project’s skill level and time estimate.

Importantly, they’ve leveraged EP’s baked-in SEO tools by using “clean,” keyword-optimized URLs as well as product-specific title tags. Doing so will likely help in converting those desirable customers who know exactly what they want.

Congratulations on a fantastic site Koko Bino!

PS I warm, handmade scarves ;-)

The folks at WB Research - the firm who promoted the eTail Midmarket conference and exhibition in San Francisco - have released various workshop presentation materials. You’ll need to sign up for a free account to access the materials but it’s all fairly painless.

In exchange you get presentation slides (as .pdf) - and in some cases, soundboard audio recordings - from spiels on customer-specific marketing, campaign management, search strategies, public relations and email marketing.

Here’s the lowdown, straight from WB’s announcement:

The presentations are now live on www.theetailer.com. If you’re not a member, please sign up free of charge. Otherwise, simply log-in, look, and learn. Please check back in the coming weeks for the audio that compliments these sessions. This feature will only be available to members.

They also solicit feedback from retailers (and from vendors seeking to mid-market eTailers) in order to make future events even better, …

To ensure that MidMarket eTail is the best investment you can make in ensuring the success of your organization, we encourage any and all feedback, so please drop us a line at etail@wbresearch.com and let us know what you want to see at next year’s event!

I still have a few interviews from the floor in the podcast queue so, … stay tuned (or get subscribed), but in the meantime be sure to enjoy the eTail Midmarket interviews from the Palace Hotel, along with other event coverage .

It is Christmas time and people are booking flights home to see family. I am no different, except I am in the fortunate position to be critical of website usability and it is for the benefit of our readers, not just belly-aching.

Situation: booking an airline ticket through my preferred airline
Scenario: I have successfully found the flights I wanted, chosen the flight options that are newly available (discounts for eliminating the option to change my itinerary after booking or no checked baggage), entered my frequent flier number, my credit card data, etc.

It wasn’t a small time investment from search to submit, but after hitting submit, I am faced with a Verified by Visa prompt. Now, I have never signed up for the service, but apparently it is mandatory before I can complete my booking. Okay, I book flights often so not a big deal…sign up for Verified by Visa and attempt to complete my purchase. Failed. A big alert on the checkout tells me the price has changed from the time I have started the checkout to the time I hit purchase. Now, it is not heartbreaking because the price was in fact lower by $40, but I did have to enter all my credit card info AGAIN…go through the verified by Visa process…AGAIN, and then confirm the purchase.

So, no big deal, I saved $40 right? Guess what happened in between. I started another browser session and begun to search for the exact same flight because I didn’t trust the prices I was now presented. Even more, I jumped out to the competitors site and started comparison shopping.

Yes, I ended up completing the purchase with the original session, but it took me much longer than anticipated, I almost bailed during checkout because they changed the price half way through (due to all the extra steps I was forced to take to clear the Verified by Visa sign up process), and I scoped the competition for their prices even though I am a very loyal frequent flier.

Bottom line, if you are going to offer me a price savings on something I have already committed to purchasing, just give it to me. Do not make me start the checkout process all over again. I can only imagine what my reaction would have been if the price had actually gone up…hello competition (just because it bugged me).