Small and Problem-focused teams. Essentially having one representative from each team; strategy, UX, design, front, back-end tech other than the PM, keeps key brains focused on the project from start to finish.  Involving a small group of cross-functional team members, helps generate ideas and solutions but more importantly, feasible ones – there really isn’t one “rockstar, guru or ninja!”

Shared understanding. The UXer is like a busy bee buzzing about the teams; picking as well as disseminating information. This helps clear any doubts or questions which even heavily-annotated documentation will not resolve.  Speaking of which, what looks good on paper might not actually work online! Continuous reviews with tech team allows for designs and assumptions to be validated at subsequent phases within the build phase.

Removing (or reducing) waste. The UXer does not need to wireframe every page of the new website. Once the key pages along the user journeys have been defined, the rest can be designed straight up. UX will then only need to review designs to ensure a consistent and continuous experience not to mention, usability. Furthermore, the style guide fast processes task-based aspects such as forms, logins and checkout, to the front-end dev team.

GOOB. ‘Getting out of the building’, not only works but proves to be more efficient and effective outcome. What is the use of delivering a full test plan which ends up sitting on client’s desk waiting to be read let alone approved and budgeted for? Since most projects we deal with are consumables such as makeup and hair products, rapid user-testing can be carried out any time and place out of our office in downtown Manhattan.  Any feedback obtained is by far of better value to the final outcome of the project than not involving the user at all along the process.

Permission to fail.  In a changing environment experimentation could help find the right solution or take the right decision. During a recent staff meeting our Operations Manager Douglas, reached a similar conclusion which resonates this Lean UX principle. He said he’d rather have us ‘ask for forgiveness than permission’. However, he continued (and insisted), ”as long as we are responsible for all our actions from start to finish.” Point taken – go Douglas, go Podders!

__________

Reference; Lean UX Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience, Jeff Gothelf with Josh Seiden

Marissa Collections began in 1975 with a store front boutique of hand selected items including clothing, jewelry, accessories and shoes which Marissa personally styled for each individual. The instant success among the small community on the Gulf of Mexico has continued over the years, emerging into a 10,000 square foot location in the Third Street South shopping district of Old Naples.

Pod1 has helped to take this brand and develop their digital flagship store. Key to the site’s future success is the innovative My Closet, combined with the world-class design and e-commerce functionality, we are sure this will allow them to continue their success both on and offline for many years to come.

Check out our detailed case study or visit the new site.

For some, multichannel could be the most obvious answer and, indeed, major changes are predicted for the high street in the coming year. One in four retailers (according to a study by online marketplace Rakuten) is predicting that over the next 12 months we’ll start to see our main street stores transforming into showrooms where shoppers can examine goods before buying online for home delivery; similar to Bodum’s Paris store.

Fair enough; but not all retailers have the benefit of being able to offer a multichannel experience – although as we’ve discussed in the previous few months this itself is changing with online-only retailers looking to take up vacant physical shop space on a short-term basis to connect with their customers.

However, online-only fashion retailer Asos has turned to Swedish company Virtusize and its Fit Visualiser system to bridge this particular gap. Lots of people have played around with virtual fitting room technology, but most of these have remained in the realms of fantasy as they would require far too much investment.

Virtusize’s solution takes a more practical approach, by enabling customers to compare the specific measurements of an item they already own with one they are considering buying. By displaying and overlaying silhouettes of the two items, customers can compare sizes and choose which one would fit them best.

It sounds simple, but it’s working. Asos has already seen fit-related returns drop by 30% after a six-month trial of the system. The option will see an initial roll out on more than 2,000 own-brand Asos products.

Further highlighting the growing shift towards this type of technology, Fits.me has just announced it has won a £5m investment, which it plans to use to underpin expansion into Europe and the US, while also scaling up existing operations.

The company, whose clients include Adidas, Hugo Boss, Superdry and Boden, offers a sophisticated software-as-a-service solution that uses male and female robotic mannequins with artificial muscles that enable it to mimic any size or shape of body. Mannequins are dressed in representative items from the retailer’s range, in each available size. Each permutation of garment/size is then photographed while the robotic mannequin morphs through thousands of body shapes, whether for a dress or a shirt. The end results enables customers to view how they might look in different sizes of clothing.

Great news for online retailers as they may finally have something that, while it doesn’t bridge the touch feel gap, certainly tackles the issues of sizing. Not so many unhappy returns, then?

DVF Rendez-Vous – Interactive Advertising & Media (Retail)

Beauty.com – Web (Fashion & Beauty)

Erno Laszlo – Web (Fashion & Beauty)

“It’s a time of growth for us here at Pod1. We welcome Erika and Douglas to the team and know that they will provide immense value not only for our clients but also for our expanding family of creative digital experts.”

Fadi Shuman, CEO and founder of Pod1, said, “It’s a time of growth for us here at Pod1. We welcome Erika and Douglas to the team and know that they will provide immense value not only for our clients but also for our expanding family of creative digital experts.”

Douglas joins Pod1 from Huge, Inc. where he was responsible for Fortune 100 clients including American Express. At Huge, Inc., Douglas grew the initial $800K for American Express into $10M in only 16 months. Prior to Huge, Inc., Douglas worked for companies such as Atmosphere/BBDO and Tommy Hilfiger, where he launched their first ever ecommerce venture.

A veteran program, project and product manager for digital product operations, Douglas brings over 15 years of industry experience to Pod1. In his new role, he will oversee the building and managing of Pod1’s delivery practice, which includes all facets of project and resource management.

Erika comes to Pod1 as a former account director at iCrossing, a leading digital marketing agency. After starting her career in production at Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Erika joined Serious USA, where she managed accounts including Manchester United, Aston Villa and the Twilight series.

She has helped develop some of the world’s largest brands, including MTV, The New York Times, and the Hearst Corporation. In her new role as Director of Client services at Pod1, Erika will be responsible for ensuring client satisfaction as well as growing Pod1’s existing client relationships.

About Pod1, a Group FMG Company
Based in New York, Pod1 has been creating engaging e–commerce experiences to help brands and retailers sell more online since 2001. Their unique approach to website design and build, founded on planning and insight development means that the agency is consistently breaking new ground in the world of luxury and fashion e–commerce. Clients include: TAG Heuer, The Limited, Stuart Weitzman, Salvatore Ferragamo, Nanette Lepore, Net–a–Porter, DvF, Kenneth Cole, Matthew Williamson and LK Bennett.

About Group FMG
Group FMG is a multi–channel content and commerce solutions company. Group FMG provides award–winning marketing & media solutions for print, mobile, tablet, interactive magazines, e–books, catalogues, websites, digital shop fronts and more. The firm creates rich media content across all major channels – digital, social, mobile, advertising, packaging & POS, gaming, and broadcast – and integrates consulting, content and e–commerce services for its global roster of agencies and Global 1000 clients. Select Group FMG clients include: Sears, Staples, Pepsi, Boots, Harrods, Boden, Disney, Penguin, Harper Collins, BBC, AMI, IBM, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Sony, Lord & Taylor, Uniqlo, and Sandals. Group FMG is funded by India Value Fund Advisors (IVFA), a leading private equity fund, and Zodius Advisors, a growth capital and build–out company. The company is headquartered in New York, with offices in London, Bangalore and Chennai.

The brand was originally born in 1999, when Maria Paz de la Piedra developed the concept of ‘dressing babies as babies’ in a successful venture. The quality of the products coupled with classic designs and soft pima cotton, made babycottons a globally recognized brand.

Available in both English and Spanish, the site is the hub for all their online activities.

Pod1 acts as the AOR for this brand and we are excited about helping them grow their business across all channels.

Read more about it in our work section.

Seriously, it’s why we love working with brands like Erno Laszlo who allow us the freedom to really create something WOW.

We’re super-proud to have one of our sites be a finalist for the Most Innovative Magento Site of 2012. That’s a pretty big deal if you think about how many e-commerce sites have been created on the Magento platform..

We’ve been delivering innovative solutions in the e-commerce space since 2001. We firmly believe that it’s our in-house strategic, creative and technology teams who work collaboratively that allow us to deliver e-commerce firsts again and again…

The winner will be announced at the Imagine conference in Las Vegas on April 10th. Watch this space!

At the GA (General Assembly) event, Tim Riley, online director of Warby Parker shared a bunch of key ecommerce best practices. Here’s a quick checklist which we think is pretty spot on;

The homepage needs to say what the site sells in a simple and straight-forward manner. Some sites are either too busy to identify what they sell while others are too obscure.

Images courtesy of T Riley’s presentation; A Conversation about E-Commerce at GA

Showcase what customers want, not everything! Look at the website’s stats to see where and what people are clicking.

Good photography creates conversion, bad photography only creates conversation. Quality, detail and presentation are key.

Copy sells and sometimes it’s good to make it funny!

Product review videos – but do they always work?  Zappos saw a 300% increase in sales following uploads of 10,000 product review videos (ref: T. Riley presentation, source E-consultancy). The guys at Warby Parker found that the best way to show specs on a person was using a simple gif;  a hover over effect allows customers to see the left, center and right sides of the face with the frame on. A successful user interface which increased conversion rate from 2.5 to 3.5.

Image courtesy of Warby Parker

Web performance affects the conversion rate; dissatisfied customers flee away.

The checkout - a make or break deal! Surprisingly, the rate of cart abandonment has increased not decreased since 2006 (ref: T. Riley presentation, source Marketing Sherpa/Forrester).  There could be a few reasons for this;

- No available guest checkout
- Poorly designed forms
- Excessive number of unnecessary steps in checkout process.

Mobile  - a ton of opportunity for ecommerce, but so far only 88% of the top 50 ecommerce sites have shopping carts (ref: T. Riley presentation, source Marketing Sherpa/Forrester) – what are they waiting for?

This post is courtesy of T Riley’s GA presentation; A Conversation about E-Commerce. Full deck is available in dropbox; https://www.dropbox.com/s/4eehl5q8oeynvpb/Tim%20Riley_Trends_Best_Practices_in_eComm.pdf

We were delighted to see that Beauty.com, a site Pod1 delivered in 2012, was featured as one of only 4 sites in the HEALTH & BEAUTY category. The other sites listed were for Avon, Warby Parker and BH Cosmetics.

Our work for Walgreens owned Beauty.com was a ground-up re-design of every aspect of the site, from logo ‘evolution’ to the shopping journey, and everything in between.

A big focus for this etailer (2nd only in size to Sephora.com) was the blending of content and commerce, something many retailers are challenged with doing but unable to accomplish.

Using a mix of magazine style layouts featuring advice and trends mixed in with shoppable products and unique content, we created a balanced site that delivers on it’s promise of “The World of Beauty Online”.

Congrats to the beauty.com team on their success.

Read more about our work on this project here.

This is a tough phenomenon for retailers to combat as the playing field is far from level. Online retailers don’t have the same overhead costs as their high street counterparts, enabling them to price their products lower. Yes, high street retailers can fight back by matching online sellers’ prices or improving customer service, but both of these increase their costs and have a direct impact on their bottom line.

Despite being all too aware of this increasingly popular shopping tactic, just 10% of bricks-and-mortar retailers have strategies in place to fight against showrooming, according to a new US research study from Edgell Knowledge Network (EKN), in partnership with eBay Local.

The report suggests that 80% of US retailers expect to be impacted by showrooming over the Christmas period; and they estimate losing an average of around 5% of sales – given the low margins in many retail sectors, this is hardly something to be glossed over.
The survey comes out in the wake of the June study by comScore, which found that 35% of Americans showroom when they’re making purchasing decisions.

While these figures are exclusively focused on the US market, retailers across the UK and the rest of Europe (in fact the rest of the world) need to be on their guard. Make no mistake, this is far from being a US-only phenomenon and we’re seeing an increasing number of UK retailers suffering the same fate.

You just need to look at the rise of mobile for e-commerce across the globe to see that showrooming is probably just the tip of the ice-berg for how mobile is going to change the face of retail in the coming years. Indeed, a survey published by NetSuite in October pointed towards an £11bn rise in mobile commerce over the next 12 months in the UK for the top retailers alone, which means retailers need to wake up to what is going on.

So what can retailers do? Part of the answer here is simple, and the EKN study draws this out: while it mentions price-matching, it also point towards improved cross-channel integration as being the most effective strategies to counter showrooming. However, only 25% of respondents reported full integration between their store and online channels, and only 15% share their full inventory online.

So despite the fact that people like me have been banging on about the importance of consistent cross- and multi-channel commerce for some time now, it appears that the retail industry still has a long way to go before it catches up. Showrooming isn’t going to go away, and retailers that get their coping strategies in order now stand to be ahead of the game over the coming years.