IP Democracy: Is Video Now Mandatory for eCommerce?

The New York Times’ Bob Tedeschi has this piece today about the infiltration of video clips into online merchants’ web sites. Some merchants, such as 1-800-Flowers.com, leverage the infrastructure of YouTube to show such things as “reconnections” of lost loved ones, accompanied, of course, by flowers.

JimMcCann, CEO OF 1-800-Flowers isn’t sure that the videos are paying off in increased sales — “We’re just going on a leap here,” he says. But, another online merchant, blender-maker Blendtec, which runs an oddly intriguing, special video series called “Will It Blend?” (check out the most recent video which puts footballs from the Chicago Bears and Indianapois Colts in two separate blenders to see which one blends first) attributes much of its growth to online video.

Not mentioned in the article is online video product review company Expo.TV, devoted to nothing but posting product reviews (and sponsor videos) of all kinds of merchandise, from metal detectors to lip balm. Expo.TV just raised $6 million in a series A round led by Masthead Venture Partners and Prism VentureWorks, and landed a deal with Yahoo!

It was hard enough for merchants to get the hang of online sales when web-based store fronts were little more than text and still images. Now, do online sellers have to think about video too? Yup, judging from the unbelievably rapid adoption of video across web storefronts, it looks like video will become a mandatory part of ecommerce.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on February 5, 2007 7:06 AM to IP Democracy