e-commerce, high speed access, DSL, Internet, related information
Long ago, I thought to myself that a website that had products to sell might be better off if the content on the site keeps those who browse around there. It was very much "in" back when the bubble was huge and went away like the dinosaur when the bubble burst.
Now its back... maybe???
This article from the NY Times talks about how some net sites, like Vegas.com, have started to have more content then just come here to buy stuff. Instead of 10 staff writers, now they have 12. Reviewing this, that and the other. Funny thing is that I was thinking allong those lines with Search Advertising. Search Advertising is nothing more than affiliate links to other sites. MSN has something like this for its Back To School section of its website. CNET also has some of these features. with Search Advertising I wanted to create a whole community around people who want to save, or people who are interested in business and marketing. It would sort of run like a consumer report such that people will comment on items available.
One big thing I wanted to do with SA was to have a yearly awards for best advertising campaign. people might get hooked into that, especially after the Super Bowl. What's more is that Search Ad will be part of a network of sites so that, for example Vehicle Worlds, has something to sell, it can go on SA too. Same for eSource Magazine with skins or autographed items.
Well, anyway, having content that allows people to want to stick around the site is something anyone designing a website or even a business should think about (no matter what channel your using: Internet, stores, catalog). Even with SA there will be bonus point, interactivity, site preferences for signed in users, and so on.
anyway, here is the story in link archive format.
SOURCE: NY Times
More E-Commerce Sites Aim to Add ‘Sticky’ Content
By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: August 9, 2004
IF it is taking longer to shop online, there is a reason: stickiness, the notion of gluing customers to sites with product information like consumer reviews and stories, is back.
Stickiness was heralded during the dot-com boom, and ridiculed during the bust. But now a confluence of technological and consumer trends is prompting e-commerce executives to again think of their online stores as multimedia shopping extravaganzas.
The trend could be seen as yet another byproduct of high-speed Internet access, which is affording online users the luxury of clicking onto pages they might have avoided in their slow-motion surfing days. And like most Internet business trends, this one is being played out against a backdrop of fiscal restraint not always seen in the smoke-and-mirrors Internet economy.
Take Vegas.com, which sells airline tickets, hotel rooms and other travel products to Las Vegas visitors. The site's president, Howard Lefkowitz, who took the job in 2001, was reviewing employee expense reports when he happened upon an invoice for $3,000 - half for alcohol expenses, half for cash outlays.
The employee, it turns out, was the site's strip club reviewer. "I said, 'We pay a guy, and we liquor him up and line his pockets with 20's to review strip clubs?' " Mr. Lefkowitz recalls telling a manager. "Not anymore we don't."
His objections were financial, not moral. Vegas.com still offers strip club reviews, but Mr. Lefkowitz said he arranges free entry for his new reviewer, Dan Hippler, whose job duties also include data analysis. "He brings a bottle of water to the clubs, and if he does use 20's, they're his own," Mr. Lefkowitz said. "But that's information I frankly don't want to know."
Mr. Lefkowitz said the Web site's editorial team had tripled, to 10 to 12 people, as the site built more informational features around its travel products. This fall, Mr. Lefkowitz said, the company intends to introduce, in partnership with Nextel Communications, a feature called the Nextel Business Center, an online concierge service of sorts, that will give travelers lists of activities near Las Vegas hotels. He said the site had in the past year created editorial sections devoted to bachelors, couples, families and others groups.
"And we'll continue to expand," he said. "But there's a fine line. If people are reading too much, they're not buying stuff."
Vegas.com has walked that line well, Mr. Lefkowitz said, by ensuring that most of the editorial features are relevant to a transaction. He would not disclose the site's sales, but he said that since 2001, the number of visitors who purchased a product had increased...
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