The Official Fluid Blog

We’ve just returned from Shop.org’s Annual Summit in Las Vegas. Most of what happened in Vegas shouldn’t stay in Vegas. It’s well worth sharing. Ten highlights in 140 characters or less…

1. If you’re getting bad reviews on a product you probably shouldn’t be selling it. [Session: Terry Lundgren, CEO, Macy's]

2. Starbucks is the McDonald’s of the middle class. And McDonald’s is owning this by competing up. Their take? 4 bucks for coffee is dumb. [Session: Sucharita Mulpuru, Forrester]

3. Everyone else is in = why 50% of retailers are in social media. 34% see a + biz impact. Note: This is social bc it’s worth talking about. [Session: Sucharita Mulpuru, Forrester]

4. Walking through the Expo Hall wearing a non-retailer pass is like walking into a singles bar wearing a denim vest and waving a red flag.

(more…)

Fluid is excited to announce the launch or new site for Calvin Klein Fragrances, http://www.calvinkleinfragrances.com/. Fluid has been working with the Calvin Klein Fragrances team for several months to develop a new site that integrates the entire Calvin Klein fragrance line into a single, unified site experience while allowing each brand to express its own individuality. Individual fragrances include ck one, eternity, obsession, euphoria, escape and the latest addition to the line, ck free.

Too often when shopping online, I run across amazing lifestyle images featuring a product I would like to buy (or at least learn more about) but the retailer makes it difficult or impossible to find. Typically I’ll click on the image only to be faced with a confusing category page where if I’m lucky, I might find the product I’m after.

The simple fact is that lifestyle imagery is engaging and fun: just look at the stack of Williams-Sonoma or Patagonia catalogs on the average consumer’s coffee table. However, turning that imagery into something web-ready by adding copy takes too much time and specialized resources (designers) and might even detract from the imagery itself. This is disappointing because as in the offline world, vivid imagery is engaging and can both build brand and increase the chance a customer will buy that item.
(more…)

New research from Mintel and publicized by eMarketer further reinforces the importance of friends and family members in buying process. This is exactly the type of authentic peer-to-peer feedback, both asynchronous sharing through Facebook and real time collaborative shopping, we enable with Fluid Social.

Several years ago, I had the “misfortune” of being introduced to my first digital SLR camera. I was immediately hooked and since then I’ve been suffering the same symptoms as all other camera hobbyists: a compulsive need to purchase (or drool over) expensive camera accessories and gear. So when I “need” more camera gear, I’ll go online to shop because, aside from the obvious convenience factor, I like the ability to bargain hunt and easily research products. But with so many online camera retailers out there, it’s getting pretty hard to differentiate between the sites. They all sell the same products, offer the same product information, in a similar layout. So when I do my research, I’m usually looking for two things – product price and customer product reviews. These are the two main components that really help me determine whether the product is highly recommended at a price point I’m comfortable with – which ultimately affects my decision to buy. But are there other things that retailers can do to help differentiate themselves above the rest? (more…)

A nice piece by Jennifer Saranow Schultz ran in the Wall Street Journal this morning describing how retailers are increasingly leveraging a shoppers’ social network to move people through the conversion funnel. In it Jennifer does a great job of capturing the key aspects of the Fluid Social product.

The data we’ve been collecting from our customer installations is proving that comments from friends are the most effective way to drive immediate increases in engagement and conversion.  It is good to see this topic getting attention from the mainstream business press.

Fluid Social takes a fresh look at defining what social shopping is. It is the first product to focus on getting consumers the opinions that matter most – those of their friends and family – at the point they matter most – on your ecommerce site. The product’s genesis is from insights gained through years spent designing leading-edge ecommerce experiences on behalf of our clients. It has been in development for years.

We’ve written a whitepaper to articulate why this is such an important topic and how retailers can leverage existing friendships and social networks to improve the shopping experience, increase engagement and sell more. If you’d like to read the whitepaper please visit the Fluid website. If you need to read more about Fluid Social we can help you with that, too.

Some of you may have seen the recent articles published about the latest release of Fluid Social on AdAge and Techcrunch. We’re flattered by the coverage but even more excited by the response we are getting from customers and prospective customers.

We’re excited to point you to a new and improved version of our Friend-Based Merchandising on the JanSport site. The new release not only allows shoppers to see their Facebook friends’ comments on products on the shopping site but it also allows users to start their product exploration from within the JanSport site by clicking on the “My Friends Like” tab. It also pulls comments from friends to feature them more prominently on the site. It also posts to your news feed when you comment on a product or ask a question and features a Facebook application that allows you to zoom in and see a product in multiple colors.

We’re excited about the new release but can’t wait to hear your thoughts. Let us know what you think.

At Fluid we’ve delivered some interesting work in the past: Timberland’s Build Your Own Boot Studio (BYOB) was a breakthrough in product configuration, offering instant color change and the first rotation of a custom product. Reebok built upon this by allowing two axes of rotation as well as allowing shoppers to configure a product on a lifestyle photograph. The recent launch of the new Vans configurator, is one of the most exciting client launches during my time at Fluid.

The Vans work builds on many of our learnings of the past years:

• Designing a custom product is stressful. One of the biggest impediments to custom product sales has been the inability to get immediate validation on a design in real time. In the Vans configurator a shopper can send a link to a friend via instant messenger (or email). When the user clicks the link they’ll be brought into a collaborative shopping session where they can share design ideas and give feedback in real time. We believe this will not only increase sales but bring new shoppers to the Vans site.
• Product configuration is an iterative undertaking. We’re providing users a simple “Scratchpad” where they can save their designs in progress for easy reference without logging in. With the scratchpad users can save a design with a single click and return to a previous design just as quickly.
• All of this functionality is part of the Fluid Retail product suite, utilizing both Fluid Configure and Fluid Social. This means we’ll be able to deploy the technology faster and more cost effectively for future customers looking to create similar collaborative shopping experiences.

We couldn’t be more excited to share this client work with you…keep your eyes peeled for future deployments of Fluid Social collaborative shopping deployed in support of collaborative shopping for traditional, mainline products.

Social Design Principle #4 – Participate in Active Listening

Utilizing social design principles to improve a customers shopping experience has the potential to bring tremendous benefit to a company and its customers.  However, no matter what conversations take place, there are two key components essential to the fourth principle: active listening:

• Maintain your commitment to having conversations – companies must be dedicated to maintaining their social channels to keep content fresh and new.
• Admit your mistakes, and do something about them – part of having authentic conversations is being prepared to accept negative feedback and to do something about it.

Maintain your commitment to having conversations.
Social Design is only powerful when the content is new. Customers will not participate in a conversation if there are very few others or if the thread is old.  If there is little or no activity, then people are not likely to participate.  Therefore, companies must be prepared to maintain their blogs, video and photo galleries, Twitter broadcasts, Facebook groups, and whatever myriad of social technologies they choose to pursue.
More importantly, companies  need to mean every word they say.  If a company promises to modify a product or improve a service in response to an upset customer, they must do so. Engaging customers then failing to follow through and deliver on those promises damages the company’s brand, reputation, and credibility.

(more…)