It excites me to know end to praise a usability innovation from an online retailer that is NOT Amazon. Hooray!

I noticed a filtered navigation design on Overstock that is really interesting. It combines search with filtered navigation - here’s what I mean:

Say you’re checking out the “Rings” category. You’re presented with a number of ways to narrow your results: Category, Metal, Size, Price and Stone.

But if you’re looking for say, a cocktail ring - this could include a variety of gemstones and metals, could be at any number of price points and would depend on what size you are looking for. Rather than looking at ALL items in the “Rings” category, you can hone in on just the cocktail rings by searching for “cocktail.”

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This isn’t a new topic here at Get Elastic, but since search engine optimization is such a key part to ecommerce success I’m going to bang the same drum once again on optimizing for brand names.

Zappos appears to have covered all the bases and then some in optimizing its brand category pages. For example, its Nine West page (below) includes 272 occurrences of “Nine West” on this page - that’s 4.55% of the entire page copy. This is what is referred to as “keyword density.” Though keyword density is not as important to SEO as was once thought (title tag, keyword rich backlinks from other sites and the domain’s overall authority have more impact), this page certainly is considered highly relevant to “Nine West” by Google.

Like Karmaloop, Zappos includes a paragraph about the brand itself. Most ecommerce sites have category / brand pages that consist of little more than images, links and a page title.

Also included at the category level are customer reviews. Each product with a review appears on the same page. Though the links to the product pages are “nofollowed” (link includes an HTML attribute telling search engines not to crawl the linked page or pass Page Rank), the keywords count towards the overall relevance to the page.

Get you’re scrolling finger ready, you’ll need it.

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One of my favorite blogs, RetailEmail.Blogspot.com, faithfully follows hundreds of email marketing campaigns to compile useful trend data and showcase the best (and worst) of email design and subject lines.

One of the most interesting tags to surf is the animation category. Here you’ll find a bunch of examples of how retailers are incorporating animated gifs into email messages. I’d like to share some of my favorites from this category:

1. Showing Items in Context

We learned from the recent webinar “Jon Stewart or Oprah: What’s Your Website’s Personality?” that certain personality types or buying modalities respond better to seeing items “in context” or how they will be used practically. This means clothing on humans or furniture in a room. On a product page, multiple product views give customers an idea of how products look from different angles.

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Alan Rimm-Kaufman was kind enough to videoblog the concepts covered by his panel at the recent Shop.org conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. Alan was presenting on how to be customer centric in paid search marketing.

Alan presents in his slide deck a number of things customers really want (yes the Spice Girls did make a cameo in the presentation although they were a no-show in person at the Shop.org event). He then applies them to a real product search experience for one of Under Armour’s running shoe models: the Proto Power Trainer.

What A Searcher Really Really Wants From Your Paid Search Ad

• I want to type 2, 3 or 4 words into Google (Longer queries may reflect “long tail” search terms. Product-specific searches like “under armour proto power trainer” are far more specific than “running shoe” and typically converts higher if you have what that searcher wants in stock and at a favorable price)

• I want to use my own words, not yours (Customers may use different word orders or synonyms like running shoe, athletic shoe, sneakers, trainers or runners)
• I want you to handle my typos and misspells (It’s easy to type “armor” rather than “armour” - especially for US customers)
• I want to find your ad on page 1, above fold (Customers expect very targeted queries to deliver relevant results. Product keywords are important in search ads for higher click through)
• I want ad copy which helps me choose (
• I want ad copy which is honest (If you promise a product - you better send the customer to the right landing page - not the home page or even the category page. Make sure the price in your ad matches the price on your landing page)
• I want a landing page which loads quickly (Alan has a great article on this at Search Engine Land)
• I want a landing page which lets me do what I want to do me as quickly as possible (We’ve got a great webinar on landing page optimization)

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…all your products on one page, that is.

The Wall Street Journal recently said of male shoppers:

“This group is a retailer’s dream: When shopping online, they spend more, make snap decisions — and return less stuff.”

The article cites research that suggests men shop in cyberspace just like they do in the physical world - they want to get in and out the door fast. Women on the other hand will browse, click, compare, browse some more - just for fun - then end up buying something in a physical store.

Enter Web 2.0

To facilitate the boys’ need for speed, Neiman Marcus has added features to its tie shop that show more product - faster. And I mean fast, go try it out yourself it’s like watching Indy cars (not sure how usable it is as it’s hard to control).

Neiman Marcus has also enlarges images when you roll over thumbnails, as we’re seeing more and more. This saves clicks and time.

American Eagle Outfitters “gets it” too. The AE site allows you to mouseover the product category from individual product pages. For example “View All Shorts” (notice the scroll bar?)

From the WSJ article: “Neimanmarcus.com now gives shoppers a way to view 52 ties at once in its new Tie Shop, instead of having to look at them nine at a time.”

The 1.0 Solution

Maybe you don’t have the development resources that Neiman Marcus or American Eagle Outfitters has. No worries, there’s always the “View All” link.

As easy as it is to do, many sites don’t offer a simple view all link. Hey I may have a pony tail but I hate clicking on page numbers as much as any man. It’s a simple usability feature that could help make the shopping experience better for men and women - without having to implement fancy Web 2.0.

We learned from our recent webinar Jon Stewart or Oprah: What’s Your Website’s Personality Type that different people experience and interact with your website in different ways depending on their dominant personality type.

These 4 buying modalities have been described as Competitive (fast and logical decision-making), Spontaneous (fast and emotional decisions), Methodical (slow and rational) and Humanistic (slow and emotional). (Read this summary if you’re not familiar with the 4 modalities.)

You may have a tendency to make most of your decisions a certain way - that’s just who you are. But different buying situations can throw you into a different mode. For example, a typically spontaneous person must take a slow and rational approach when evaluating software vendors for a major ecommerce project, even though he may download iTunes tracks on impulse several times over the same period.

Personality Types and Email Marketing

If you had an email account that was purely ecommerce offers (no messages from work, friends or Nigerian ambassadors), you would see the majority are vying for your attention like: SALE! UP TO 50% OFF! NEW STOCK! ONLINE ONLY! EXCLUSIVE! FREE SHIPPING!

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Like Vitaman’s Nikki, American Eagle Outfitters is giving a “human” touch to its merchandising. AE has snagged video-blogging vixen iJustine as a spokeswoman for its Spring Break events in Cancun. And you can find her ooh-ing and aah-ing products within an interactive Spring Break packing guide.

Unlike Nikki, iJustine gushes about goodies for both girls and guys when you rollover certain items.

But like the Vitaman valet, she is very enthusiastic in romancing the products:

Guys, trust me. Throw on a polo and a smile and you’ll have every girl’s attention. They’re so great looking and so easy to wear with anything. If you don’t pack some polos, you might as well stay home.

Whether having a human describe products is something customers want to see - I don’t know. Perhaps for high school / college types who’d rather watch the movie than read the book - watching a product description is preferred?

But really, this concept isn’t new. We have the choice to read the newspaper, or watch an attractive anchor read it to us. Why wouldn’t that also apply to ecommerce?

Video is Here to Stay

It certainly takes a lot of time and money to build interactive Flash-based applications. But if you don’t want to go that route, you can still add a human element by adding video content to product pages, like Tiger Direct:

This video sold me on this camcorder, which I purchased immediately along with a bunch of accessories. I found Arno to be knowledgeable, friendly and humorous. Plus this video actually showed me how close you can zoom in with this camera - try describing that with text! With absolutely no background knowledge of camcorders, it really helped to have a virtual salesperson to turn to. Plus it’s nice to refer to the demo to learn how to use the camera when I get it rather than relying on the package black and white insert.

I expect to see a lot more video merchandising (with real people) popping up in the future.

If your company or products are fortunate enough to attract media attention, naturally you would want to highlight this your ecommerce website. Not only does it add credibility to your site browsers, but it can also help new visitors to your website responding to your good press find those featured items quickly.

One store that gets a lot of media love is Rampage. Today we’re going to look at how Rampage leverages its media coverage, and what it can do to take it one step further.

Home Page

The pencil skirt in the image above was recently included in a fashion segment on the Today Show. Rampage includes an “As Seen on the Today Show” link on the home page, so any visitor, whether they have seen the clip or not knows right away the media thinks Rampage is a trend-setting store. Even if you don’t want a pencil skirt, the recognition of the Today Show may boost consumer trust.

The home page also links to a media coverage section — mostly top fashion magazines. There’s 17 mentions from fashion magazines in Winter 2008 alone. Each reference has a thumbnail of the magazine with details of which item was featured.

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We promised a celebrity-inspired session and our own Jason Billingsley and Carolyn Gardner of Sitebrand delivered with “Jon Stewart or Oprah: What’s Your Website Personality.”

Jason and Carolyn matched 4 well-known celebs to 4 consumer-mindsets that you should know.

4 Consumer Mindsets

• Competitive (Jon Stewart)

• Spontaneous (Steve Colbert)
• Methodical (Dr. Phil)
• Humanistic (Oprah)

Some characteristics of each:

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American Eagle Outfitters recently AJAX-ed up its web design including its navigation menu. What’s different about AE’s flyout menu that’s different from Office Max’ and Eddie Bauer’s navigation redesign is that it actually merchandises within the flyout. Here’s what I mean:

When you roll over a section in the horizontal menu, a sub-menu appears with some featured items. In the example above, you see one featured Clearance item from each category: men’s, women’s and aerie.

This technique allows you to show more content without a click. Clicking away from a page means another click if you want to go back. But flyouts give the user a faster peek at what’s behind the menu buttons. And if you accidentally roll over a menu item, you may be enticed by that 50% off offer you otherwise would not be aware of.

The downsides of AJAX-y menus are they cover up content, can be finicky and require steady mouse control to operate properly. Or worse, they can appear when you don’t expect them too when you mouse a bit too close to the hot-spot. Not everyone will find this a usability improvement.

I noticed when you click on the Clearance button you get different featured items. I think it would be better to keep the same items as in the flyout, because a customer may click out of habit, and wonder where that green camisole disappeared to. You want to minimize the “whoa, what happened?” factor, especially when you’re introducing Web 2.0 coolness that may involve a learning curve. (Even for technosavvy Millennials like the AE customer. It just might be mom or grandma picking out a gift).

Text in the red box doesn’t need to change after you click on Clearance. If a customer clicks on Clearance, he/she understands it’s the clearance section, you don’t have to restate the obvious. When it comes to online copy - less is more.

All-in-all, it’s a pretty neat idea. What do you think about merchandising within navigation? Love it? Hate it?

PS: If you’re interested in merchandising tips and trends, be sure to sign up today for our upcoming webinar: Effective Online Merchandising: What Sells?