Apparel & Accessories

Sophisticated or shocking, these retailers nail a niche

Apparel & Accessories AmericanApparel.net AE.com Anthropologie.com Athleta.com Avelle.com Bluefly.com Cusp.com DesignByHumans.com EddieBauer.com Gap.com Karmaloop.com LandsEnd.com Levi.com MartinAndOsa.com NikeiD.com NineWest.com Roxy.com shoeline.com UnderArmour.com Undergear.com Vans.com WetSeal.com Zappos.com

The e-commerce sites featured in the apparel & accessories category of this year’s Hot 100 are as distinctive as, well, individual clothing buyers. And that’s a big part of what makes them successful.

These are certainly not cookie-cutter sites. Put the retail sites of Anthropologie and Wet Seal up next to one another and the difference is night and day. The first sells with sophistication—employing luxurious images, a muted background conveying a dreamy feel and advanced technology such as a downloadable widget that spotlights the featured product of the day. The second sells with fun and social features, offering a fashion runway where shoppers can create, rate, share and comment on outfits and funky, hip copy. Trying the test again with EddieBauer.com and Roxy.com, or Karmaloop.com and Gap.com, will produce similar results. Each site is completely different.

So what’s the common thread that makes all these retailers Hot 100-worthy? Each retailer knows its audience and speaks directly to it. Anthropologie consumers are more mature fashion fans, while Wet Seal’s shoppers are teens who love to chat about the newest fads. Different consumers require different marketing approaches, and these retailers understand that.

Take Roxy.com. Its fans are female surfers who love to ride a great wave and lead an active lifestyle. Roxy wanted to offer these shoppers something that would resonate with them that was not easily found elsewhere. The answer: Videos of young women surfing. The retailer not only added the fast-paced videos to its site, but also to YouTube.com, where they attracted considerable attention.

American Apparel, another retailer that appeals to the younger consumer, takes an entirely different approach to it brand. Its simple, minimalist site markets to chic, young city dwellers, and is a far cry from Roxy.com’s athletic, on-the-go vibe. Karmaloop.com, another Hot 100 apparel & accessories site, appeals to an edgy youth culture with in-your-face shock appeal, a plethora of social media and a video microsite.

The Hot 100 apparel & accessories retailers this year know they will never be able to attract every shopper. And they don’t want to. They simply strive to serve their target market, and serve it well.

Simple is chic
AmericanApparel.net is designed to project the same air of sophistication and complexity that infuses American Apparel Inc.’s 143 retail locations worldwide. Based in Los Angeles, the company has built a reputation for being in touch with fashion-conscious U.S. youth, and has parlayed that reputation into impressive overseas growth.

The site design is intentionally simple. A central display shows scrolling photographic images—some more risqué than others—all containing striking models showing off a wide selection of products.

“This is an ‘in-your-face’ site with a hip, counter-culture feel,” says Mark Lee, principal at consulting company The Mark Lee Group LLC. “It’s almost like you’ll somehow be cooler just for visiting the site.”

The photos project the clothing manufacturer’s style: sophisticated but simple. “Simplicity has always been a tenet of our brand,” says web director Raz Schionning. “We try to avoid the gimmicks you’ll find on other sites. They’re flashy at first, but the level of effort they require is unsustainable.”

Wary of overwhelming customers, American Apparel chose not to pack its site with new features, opting instead to focus on customer service. Understanding that while photos help, buying clothes online is not the same as trying something on at a store, the site tries to ease the minds of customers by making the process of returns and exchanges as painless as possible. Replacement shipping is free and customers can exchange products for any reason within 45 days of a purchase.

Another important facet of AmericanApparel.net is customer participation. “Along with the shopping,” Lee says, “there’s plenty of involvement: a blog, a link to a radio station, a Halloween costume contest, submitted photos, political messages.”

The recent Halloween costume contest, in its second year, attracted double the number of photo submissions as last year. Schionning says it led to two of the best weeks the company has ever had in terms of web traffic, and to expect more events like this in the future. “Online sales can be a faceless business,” says Schionning. “It’s nice to put a face on our customer.” Back to top

Got 2 have it
American Eagle Outfitters Inc. is known as a keen observer of the youth scene and is not afraid to employ the new technologies so wholeheartedly embraced by younger consumers. One feature of the AE.com site allows a visitor to select an item and text information about it to a friend’s cell phone. Senders can choose messages such as “Do u like?” if asking a peer’s opinion or “Got 2 Have” or “Don’t 4get” if the teen is asking for the item as a gift.

The text includes a code that shoppers can show to store employees who can use it to retrieve the item. The text also includes a link to the product page so that consumers with mobile web access can go to the AE mobile site and see the item.

AE.com’s children-oriented sister site 77kids.com streamed in November an exclusive one-time concert with hit pop music band Jonas Brothers. The web show—a one-time-only event—included concert performance footage, interviews and other exclusive content. 77kids ran a sweepstakes in advance, awarding seven girls and seven boys tickets to the concert, as well as airfare and hotel accommodations.

The sweepstakes and promotion marked the launch of the 77kids collection aimed at children 2 to 12. 77kids takes its name from the fact that American Eagle Outfitters was founded in 1977.

The site also offers free weekly music and video downloads.

“Music is the hook that keeps shopper traffic coming back,” says Mary Brett Whitfield, senior vice president of consulting firm TNS Retail Forward. “Teens and pre-teens are very interested in learning about the newest bands,” she says.

AE.com also does a good job of advertising and promoting new merchandise, Whitfield says. “Teens are likely to go back to see what’s on the site, what’s new, what should I be thinking about in terms of spending my allowance or bugging mom and dad,” she says.

AE.com has links on the home page to 77kids.com and two other sister sites oriented to youth, Aerie.com and MartinAndOsa.com. Back to top

At the same time, the site offers navigation features that let customers on a mission bypass browsing to immediately find what they are looking for.

“Every person shops differently. Even the same person may shop differently at different times,” says Michael Robinson, Anthropologie’s executive director of marketing. “If you know you need a sweater, you go directly to the sweaters category, digging down quickly into the small subset of items that really fit your needs. Other times, when you want something but don’t know what it is, shopping by category is less satisfying. That’s why we provide a lot of different shopping features.”

Among those recently added is a shop-by outfit feature that lets shoppers click on individual elements of an on-model outfit for product detail, or add the entire outfit to her cart. Another new feature displays highly detailed individual pieces of apparel on mannequins in a scrolling format. That lets shoppers glide from one to the next so as to highlight design elements, such as ruffles and seams. The addition of an Adobe Flash-based checkout process this year brings even this utilitarian function in line with the smooth-gliding navigation of the site’s merchandising features.

“This site is all about the look and feel, and how they put together the outfits is very clever. They make it a lot more fun for people,” says Lauren Freedman, president of research and consulting firm The E-Tailing Group. “It’s not laid out like a traditional site—it’s got some pizzazz.” Freedman also praises the display of clothing on mannequins on category pages as a way to supply better product information, and how the site’s merchandising supports its strong brand story.

“We are always looking for different ways to present products to the customers,” Robinson says. “And we’re always focused on further enhancing the customer experience.” Back to top

No sweat

Retailers often use images of stunning models in exotic backdrops to showcase their products, but what has struck a chord with customers is Athleta Inc.’s images of real-life women athletes.

“You go pretty deep into the web site and you can find inspirational imagery,” says Jed Smith, vice president of marketing and creative at Athleta. “Our customers tell us on a frequent basis that they’re inspired by it.”

Athleta’s target customers are women between the ages of 25 and 55, and they range from hardcore athletes to women who are active and on the go. They’re invariably busy, and Athleta works to make its site navigation efficient. Shoppers can search according to their different needs, such as by activity like yoga, tennis, cycling and hiking, or by type of item.

Product pages provide recommendations of coordinating pieces of apparel. “I like the recommendation of tops likely to go with the pants on the page. It’s helpful for the consumer and should increase average order size,” says Shari Altman, president of Altman Direct, a marketing consulting agency.

In addition, Athleta.com offers a shop by outfit that provides full details on every piece of a featured outfit on a single page.

In September, Gap Inc. announced that it was buying Athleta for about $150 million in cash. Gap says buying Athleta will help it tap the growing $31 billion women’s athletic clothing business in the U.S. The Athleta apparel line will take up a fifth tab on Gap’s e-commerce site labeled Universality. The tab system lets shoppers browse and buy from all of Gap’s retail sites—Gap, shoe store Piperlime, Banana Republic and Old Navy—in one cart and for one shipping fee.

“While we have an exciting growth curve, what gets us jazzed up is the Gap Universality platform, because a huge range of customers will now be exposed to us,” says Smith.

The companies say they are still working on the timeline to incorporate Athleta into the Universality platform. Back to top

Always a brand new bag

“The Internet has been such an enabler for us,” says CEO Mike Smith. “You could do something like this on a one-off, rental shop basis, but it would be very difficult to do on a broader scale.”

Smith says the site aims to establish a third leg on a three-legged stool of luxury goods consumption: buy new, buy used or rent.

Avelle’s customers rent handbags, jewelry, luggage and watches by the week or month. Avelle’s handbags are valued at anywhere from $200 up to the vintage Hermes black crocodile Birkin bag valued at $49,000. While that’s a price tag that may be hard to swallow at retail, for the fashion obsessed the weekly rental of $1,632 for Avelle club members is a lot more palatable.

Site functionality mirrors the high-end rental merchandise with crisp and highly detailed product imagery; an authenticity guarantee for the 4,000-plus designer items available for borrowing; and merchandising features geared toward the fashion-focused audience, such as Trends and New Arrival links on the top navigation bar, the ability to search by price and designer, and a wait list to get in line for a chance to rent the hottest accessories.

Celebrity-focused site efforts such as the Tyra Banks TV show and Sex in the City film promotions are right on target for this site’s audience, says Lauren Freedman, president of online retail consultancy The E-Tailing Group. Functions including a Match Maker feature that lets shoppers narrow search results by product attributes such as a bag’s lining color or strap length support choices so detailed as to “almost overwhelm,” Freedman says, adding that she’d like to see search on the site run a bit faster. Still, she says, the search function “does a robust job.” Back to top

Connecting every day

Bluefly stays involved with her by sending her an e-mail message each day, a message tailored to her tastes. It also connects to her through the TV shows she watches and by having fun with current events.

For instance, during the presidential election Bluefly created a widget it called Fashion Decision 2008 that let customers vote on such issues as whether Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s sunglasses were cooler than those of opponent Joe Biden (Palin in a landslide), or whether Michelle Obama looked better in a Republican red dress than Cindy McCain did wearing a Democrat-blue suit (Michelle by a nose).

The online-only apparel retailer also features deals tied to popular TV show Gossip Girl. Bluefly advertises on the show and characters are shown carrying its shopping bags. On the web site, customers can shop the “closets” of characters like Serena and Blair, that is, browse merchandise these fashion plates might wear.

The election-related polls and Gossip Girl promotions contributed to a 25% increase in online buzz about Bluefly in October, according to digital marketing firm Zeta Interactive, which tracks blogs and web communities.

Bluefly also sponsored fashion show Project Runway, and sold the apparel designed by Christian Siriano, who won the reality show’s competition for aspiring designers this spring. A video of a subsequent fashion shoot with Siriano was posted on Bluefly.com and on YouTube, and Bluefly and others blogged about his clothes. The clothing sold out in a day, and unique visitors to Bluefly.com increased 70% that week, Matson says.

“I really like Bluefly.com,” says Lee Diercks, managing director of consulting firm Clear Thinking Group. “They give a strong impression of being very fashion-forward, with the tie-ins to Gossip Girl and the new designer talent they feature.” Even more important for Bluefly, Diercks notes that “my daughter and daughter-love this site.” Back to top

The cusp of fashion

The stuff is never all from one designer; the technique mimics how young (or young-thinking), fashion-forward shoppers put it all together. And they can branch out from a look, picking a bag here, some shoes there. All the while, they can listen to Radio Cusp, the site’s answer to a retail store’s piped-in music.

You might not know that you’re in an offshoot of the refined luxury retail chain Neiman-Marcus. “Our contemporary business was growing, but we couldn’t turn ourselves into a contemporary store,” says Ginger Reeder, vice president of corporate communications for the Neiman-Marcus Group Inc. “We thought that our younger, boutique-oriented luxury customers were being underserved. That customer is distinctive in that she has a refined personal sense of style, is open to new brands and designs, and is very comfortable with herself. She’s less interested in being Armani from head to toe and more interested in putting together a personal look.”

The Dallas-based department store chain wanted to attract more of those customers, and in 2006 opened its first Cusp retail store. (There are now four, soon to be five.) Some are in malls, others on city streets, and they serve as a laboratory for new ideas. So does the web site, launched earlier this year.

Chicago retail consultant Keven Wilder admires the site’s clever use of social media, with a blog that ties tightly to featured products, and pages on Facebook and MySpace.

“The Cusparazzi feature, with photos of store happenings, adds to the hipness of the site,” she says. She also likes the ability to search by trend, the zoom feature that lets customers zero in on details, and the availability of both classic and modern size guides. Back to top

Power to the people

The retailer, which launched in August 2007, is the brainchild of brothers Matt and Jason Gutierrez, two art enthusiasts with apparel backgrounds. The duo was looking for a way to share the talent and creativity they saw in the California art scene with the rest of the world—and make a little money as well.

The result? DesignByHumans.com, an online T-shirt shop that relies entirely on its visitors to determine the products it sells.

“Think of it as American Idol for T-shirts,” says Jason Gutierrez, chief operating officer. “We are an ongoing design contest, store and community all rolled into one.”

Each day, visitors cast ballots for their favorite designs from a selection of shirts submitted by artists from around the world. Daily winning designers receive $750, and Design By Humans retains the rights to manufacture and sell their creations.

The pot sweetens as daily winners are entered in a weekly contest, which awards $1,000; weekly winners are in the running for a monthly prize of $1,750.

“It’s a contest, it’s a business and it’s a social networking site,” says Mara Devitt, a partner at retail consultancy McMillan Doolittle LLP. “The consumer can have several levels of involvement—from viewing the designs, to providing feedback to the artists, to voting on a design and ultimately voting with their pocketbook by purchasing a shirt.”

Design By Humans’ crowd-sourcing model saves the company money. There’s no need to hire buyers to search for hot looks that may or may not sell, or to employ designers to conjure up fresh styles. And the contests serve as a form of free marketing for the T-shirts.

Design By Humans receives 100 to 200 T-shirt submissions daily, Gutierrez says. So far, about 3,000 artists have submitted designs, and 70,000 consumers have cast votes. On average, about 200 individuals vote on each shirt, Gutierrez says, with about 80 posting comments.

Not too shabby for a retailer that has yet to celebrate its second anniversary. Back to top

Message received

But now, after 18 months of study and following up on hundreds of customer interviews and usability test sessions, Eddie Bauer is scaling new heights online with a completely updated web site and e-commerce infrastructure from Fry Inc.

The new Eddiebauer.com features 25% bigger graphics, top-of-the-page navigation and mouse-over technology. The product pages, which are generated by a new content management system, also feature multiple images of a product, zoom, the ability to change colors, and recommended products.

“A big goal of the redesign was getting customers deeper into the product pages quicker, but also giving them a broader shopping experience,” says Eddie Bauer vice president of marketing David Makuen. “We acted on what customers told us were the most important issues.”

As an enhancement to its shopping cart and as one more chance to cross-sell, the new web site has an interim checkout page that displays the merchandise the customer is about to purchase and provides additional options to once more select a range of accessories, see product availability, zoom in on the product, read current promotions and store the information in that shopping cart for up to 60 days.

“We still have some plumbing work to do, but the new site is meeting customers’ expectations,” says Makuen. One sign of that is that Eddie Bauer’s online shoppers are sticking around longer. The average visitor session on Eddiebauer.com has increased to 11 minutes and 11 seconds from 9 minutes and 13 seconds a year earlier, says web measurement firm Hitwise.

Retail web site analysts also like the site’s improved navigation. “The product rollovers show proactive thought on what views and options the user would like to see on an item-by-item basis,” says Dan Kurani, CEO of retail web site design firm Kurani Interactive. Back to top

Bringing brands together

Earlier this year, Gap revamped its platform in a way that any retailer would envy—especially one with multiple strong brands. The governing principle for all the sites is “universality,” including one unified shopping cart across all sites, and plenty of cross-selling. For example, sweater shoppers at Gap are subtly offered sweater options at Banana Republic and Old Navy, and appropriate shoe and handbag promotions from Piperlime appear across the other sites.

Recently, the company adopted unified warehouses as well, so orders from Banana Republic and Gap not only come out of the same shopping cart but arrive in the same box for one low shipping fee.

“Brands don’t usually like to live with other brands,” said Gap Direct CEO Toby Lenk in an October analyst call. “But the customers all love the idea. They were asking us to do this. The best brand strategy is to do what customers love, and they love universality.”

Plenty of small features— Quick Look, mouse-over zoom, a pop-up shopping bag—make the sites helpful and convenient. “Retail is detail,” Lenk said. “It’s about the sum of all these little details and getting them just right to create great online shopping experiences.”

Gap’s e-commerce sites are very sophisticated and are examples of excellent usability, says e-commerce consultant Erin Cisney of Ciztek Consulting, and the company is far ahead of shopping cart vendors, none of which offer systems that can handle multiple stores well. “Gap’s multi-store approach,” Cisney says, “is really great.” Back to top

Karma chameleon

Karmaloop.com has embraced the community craze with blogs, widgets and ties to social networks such as Facebook and Flickr. Next came KarmaloopTV, launched in November 2007 and accessible from the retailer’s home page. It doesn’t sell a lick but instead serves up dozens of edgy videos covering fashion, music and culture complete with prominent sponsorship from such brands as Southern Comfort.

The goal is to make Karmaloop more than just a retailer, but a household name, entertainment provider and destination site, says Greg Selkoe, founder and CEO. And, Selkoe adds, the advertising revenue and increased traffic to Karmaloop.com from Karmaloop.com/tv is a nice bonus.

Other features supporting the community vibe include Karmaloop Kazbah, where artists can sell their own designs, and the Karmaloop Rep Program that rewards consumers for referring friends to the retailer.

But for all its efforts to offer fresh content, Anne Brouwer partner at retail consultancy McMillan Doolittle LLP, says some areas on the site are uncharacteristically behind the times.

“With all the breadth and depth of content and attitude, there are some surprising misses,” Brouwer says. “Much of the content is very dated, with some posts over two years old. And many of the contests and event listings have no dates at all, but are clearly expired.”

Nevertheless, Karmaloop is surging full steam ahead with new initiatives. The latest project? Jungle Life, a social networking web site that Selkoe envisions appealing to artists, musicians and other creative types.

Focusing on projects that are not directly related to selling merchandise, such as Jungle Life and KarmaloopTV, is a departure from the standard retailing playbook, and not for every e-retailer, Selkoe says. “Maybe in the orthodoxy of retailing, we aren’t following the rules,” he says. “But we don’t profess to be an orthodox retailer.” Back to top

See it your way

Keeping those principles in mind, Lands’ End redesigned its category pages so shopper’s can filter products in multiple ways, for instance, by size, collar style, fabric and sleeve length for men’s shirts and sweaters. A click on a color box changes the color of an item in a product photo. Shoppers can rotate the model 360 degrees to see the item from various vantage points.

Shoppers having trouble making up their mind about an item can request a free color swatch, which usually arrives in three to four business days. The swatch allows shoppers to examine the look and feel of the fabric, which is an important element of recreating the in-store shopping experience.

The features are meant to address the needs that stores satisfy with sales personnel and fitting rooms. Live chat and “call me” buttons appear on most pages throughout the site, beginning with the home page, making it easy for consumers to get help.

“Lands’ End delivers an interactive feel that makes shopping more like an in-store experience,” says Chris Vicente, senior manager, Products Consumer Markets Group for consulting firm BearingPoint. “The live chat and live help call features do a good job translating their sales expertise to the web.”

“This is a retailer that is known for quality, simplicity, and having a well organized, easy-to-navigate catalog, and their site is visually appealing and exactly what shoppers expect,” says Lee Diercks, a partner and managing director for Clear Thinking Group LLC. “They do e-retailing as well as anyone.”

Many consumers apparently agree, as LandsEnd.com earned a top three ranking of 39 apparel retailers in a recent Consumer Reports survey of more than 25,000 online shoppers. The Land’s End site scored 89 out of 100 possible points. Back to top

Living up to its brand

That’s why Levi Strauss & Co. set out to make Levi.com the ultimate place to shop for jeans, says Patrice Varni, vice president in charge of the e-commerce site.

“We went through a major site redesign in August 2008, with improved navigation and browsing functionality, to make finding and comparing jeans easy,” Varni says.

Shoppers on Levi.com can choose from among multiple types of jeans by resorting selections without leaving a web page; so, for example, they can view only boot-cut jeans or only jeans under the retailer’s eco brand. A Gift Guide recommends jeans by type of customer, then offers matching tops and accessories.

Levi.com also offers extensive use of rich media. Mousing over images lets shoppers instantly zoom into product details. And they can click to see how jeans fit on models from the front, side and back. These and other improvements have led to a 40% increase in the number of shoppers carting products, and a 19% increase in the number of carted products that get purchased, Varni says.

Levi.com also offers a Fit Guide for helping shoppers match their body type to several available cuts ranging from slim to loose. The guide is a work in progress, Varni says.

On that note, Paula Rosenblum, managing director of research at Retail Systems Research LLC, says the Fit Guide is an example of where Levi.com can improve on product selection and rich media. “The whole Fit Guide is interesting, but I felt like it was to be expected, nothing out of the ordinary,” she says.

But the Fit Guide, like other parts of Levi.com, will continue to improve, Varni says.

“More rich content is on the way,” she says. “Giving consumers the most information and making it easy for them to find the perfect pair of jeans leaves them feeling good about our brand.” Back to top

Style + substance

Visitors can click on a Shop by Outfit feature, either for men or women’s clothing, and see a page with a dozen models who come to life, moving, turning, even flirting with the viewers as they show off the clothing. As the visitor filters the products, such as by “classic” or “texture,” the models wearing other types of apparel stroll off the page.

“It’s an effective interaction that should translate into longer page views,” says Brandon Merritt, senior experience design specialist at Internet marketing firm Molecular Inc. “The layout and navigation of the site offers a fresh approach. The visual language of bold images, straight lines, and plenty of open space help tie the in-store and online experiences together.”

Interactive components also include a Layer Your Own Look widget that allows visitors to drag and drop outfit combinations onto a mannequin so they can see how various pieces of clothing look together. Customers can view pricing and other product details and click to make purchases without leaving the page.

The web site, launched this year, also reduces clicks by allowing customers to view color swatches of different items on main category pages. For example, a shopper searching in the knits and tees category can see which items are available in red or white without having to go to product pages.

Martin + Osa also offers other user-friendly features, such as saving items in the shopping bag for customers who leave the site and return later. “An innovative customer experience, smart options for selecting outfits, and clever ways of keeping their audience’s attention has helped push MartinAndOsa.com past their primary competitors,” says Merritt. Back to top

“We believe we are a brand that stands for innovation,” says DJ van Hameren, Nike’s general manager of global digital commerce.

This year that meant refinements to the shoe builder. NikeiD has added to the right-hand navigation, which propels shoppers through a list of customizable elements, a second design option for those preferring a free-flowing approach. Shoppers can now choose to click on any element of a pictured shoe in any order to apply their own choices. A graphic bar displays progress toward completion, and a What’s Left link lists shoe elements that still need to be selected.

Image functionality has been enhanced to a level that seeks to mimic live interaction with the product. A new design search feature displays tens of thousands of designs created by consumers willing to share. It lets shoppers specify parameters—a red and green color combination, for example—and call up already-created designs that match.

The site is effective at exposing consumers to an incredibly broad number of design possibilities while making the design experience fun, says Lauren Freedman, president of retail consultancy The E-Tailing Group. Freedman also praises product imagery and the community feature the brand has added to the site.

NikeiD also has rolled out close to 30 NikeiD studios, and the brand is developing a program that will bring the NikeiD studio to outside events and locations.

The shoe builder, according to van Hameren, is giving the Nike brand an incredible amount of information on consumer preferences. “For us,” he says, “this is an opportunity to be the most relevant brand to athletes and style-conscious consumers around the world.” Back to top

Designed to the Nines

NineWest.com works hard to tie consumers to its brand by vividly showcasing styles and offering insight into the inspiration behind them. The Design Inspiration section, for example, introduces creative director Fred Allard, offers a virtual tour of the retailer’s design studio and houses a video in which Allard discusses the season’s hot apparel and footwear trends.

“Yes we are a fashion brand, but we want to be a brand that is not off-putting or aloof but approachable,” says Ron Offir, president of e-commerce for Jones Apparel Group, which operates NineWest.com.

Visitors also can explore styles through a “look book” of featured items and order the coordinating pieces of a “look,” such as boots and a matching handbag, directly from the pages. The retailer also recently launched a pre-order feature that enables consumers to reserve a style of shoes before it’s available for purchase.

In another move to better serve web customers, the retailer began in June fulfilling online orders from retail locations as well as warehouses. The new system has reduced backorders and helped boost conversions, Offir says.

But despite several improvements, there’s still work that can be done, says Anne Brouwer senior partner at retail consultancy McMillan Doolittle LLP.

“For the true shoe lover, there are some serious shortfalls against other shoe sites,” Brouwer says. She points out missing details, such as showing the materials used for uppers and heels, frequently missing specifications on heel heights, and no product care information. In addition, there are only three shots of each shoe instead of as many as six or seven on competitors’ sites, she says.

Nevertheless, NineWest.com has made great strides in e-commerce over the past year and has big ambitions for the future including a possible overseas expansion and a bolder approach to style that’s “a bit more fashion-forward,” Offir says.

He no doubt hopes they will all be steps in the right direction. Back to top

48 hours, 500,000 views

Roxy had something quite unique: women surfers. The retailer sells apparel and accessories aimed at women who enjoy water and snow sports. And compared to their male counterparts, Roxy says, women surfers don’t get much attention. Roxy had plenty of video of the women of its Association of Professional Surfers surf team, so it decided to get it online. And not just on its site, but on the social network giant YouTube. The hope was to build brand awareness and site traffic.

It got both, and then some.

YouTube home page editorial content managers know unique sells, and one day one of the managers came across a Roxy video of women surfing. YouTube posted the video on its home page one weekend earlier this year and 48 hours later views of the video had increased from 2,000 to more than half a million. Suddenly a lot more people knew the Roxy brand.

“Young girls are on social networks almost every minute of their waking Internet hours. So it’s a perfect match,” says Chris Todd, director of online marketing at Roxy, which also boasts dynamic Facebook and MySpace pages, thus covering the Big Three of social networking. “We want to be part of their social networking consumption. It gives us an opportunity to let girls know when there is a seasonal change or something special.”

In addition to the surf team, Roxy sponsors other outdoors and healthy lifestyle events, activities well suited to video, Todd adds. “Through these programs there’s a lot of content that is very appealing visually and very inspiring,” he says, “and those are stories easily as important if not more important than letting girls know we have a new product line. So social networking is a multifaceted communication.”

Comments Maris Daugherty, a senior consultant at retail consulting firm J.C. Williams Group Ltd.: “Roxy is quite clever when it comes to social networking tactics.” Back to top

‘Don’t wait, innovate’

But after the first 10 videos proved successful, the company added more, and now offers over 100 videos, which can be viewed on product pages or by clicking the “Product Videos” link. Shoeline plans to increase that total to 500 by the spring of 2009 and ultimately plans to offer videos of every product, from business-casual loafers to black-tie dress shoes. The company also posts the videos to its YouTube and Facebook pages.

The videos, typically about 15 seconds long, show a close-up, floor-to-knee view of a model standing and making a few simple movements, showing the shoe from different angles.”We’re trying to answer one key question often asked in the buying process: How does the shoe look on the foot?” says Frank Malsbenden, vice president and general manager of parent company Vision Retailing Inc. “Shoes can look different in pictures than they do in person. They really come alive on the foot,” he says.

So far, Shoeline customers seem to agree—conversion rates are 44% higher on average for products with video. Shoeline still has work to do on the videos, including adding text that describes each clip on the video product page, but Malsbenden says he’s not one to wait until a feature is perfect. “We don’t wait. We innovate.”

Video is an extension of the retailer’s effort to make the product page informative, while keeping it simple. “The goal is to answer as many of the customer’s concerns as possible,” says Malsbenden. Product pages also feature a “return-o-meter,” which lets visitors know how often the item is returned.

Shoeline makes it easy for the customers to feel good about their purchases. “One of the first things I noticed,” says Mark Lee, principal at consulting firm Mark Lee Group, “was ‘Free Shipping. No Sales Tax. Easy Returns.’ This strong statement takes away buying objections right out of the gate.” Back to top

Action-oriented

And if one word could describe UnderArmour.com’s customers, that word might be active. They are young, hip athletic individuals who want action. And action is what they get from UnderArmour.com.

Through the use of video, UnderArmour.com shows real athletes using each product the way it was intended—complete with beads of sweat pouring down the athletes’ faces as they struggle to persevere. There are no pretty models smiling at the camera here.

“The site is visually appealing and the product looks great,” says Lee Diercks, partner and managing director at consulting firm Clear Thinking Group LLC. “This appeals to a customer with an active lifestyle and it puts a lot of emphasis on its brand.”

Diercks points out, however, that by offering so many features, UnderArmour.com may be slowing down the shopping experience. In a test, Diercks found some pages were slow to load.

Still, there is a lot to see. UnderArmour.com, the e-commerce site of apparel manufacturer Under Armour Inc., provides an archive of current and past TV commercials, video outtakes from football games and tryout camps, and director’s cut video from commercial shoots. Users can shop for products featured in that content by clicking through to the e-commerce site where they can purchase the outfits head to toe.

Understanding customer tastes and desires facilitates that seamless experience. Take the site’s platform redesign late in 2007. The company surveyed 50,000 customers, using their feedback to focus the design on simplified navigation, deeper product detail and description, and the ability to see products close up. For instance, great care was taken to show details of products.

Along with its commitment to young sports enthusiasts, UnderArmour.com delivers a seamless shopping experience for a wide range of customers. Parents or grandparents of young athletes are likely to check the site for gift suggestions. For them, there are quick and easy steps to get to the gift card section where they can make a purchase without knowing what specific product the recipient will want. Back to top

Sharing the goods

To better enable sharing and to get the word out about Undergear fashion and news, the retailer this year launched robust pages on Facebook and MySpace and galleries on Flickr. And it began monitoring buzz about Undergear on blogs and reaching out to influential bloggers.

What’s more, it found reason to make a move on another giant social network after it launched online video this year. It now has a channel on YouTube showcasing videos of its photo-shoots, from the streets of New York to the tropical islands of Turks and Caicos.

“The videos really bring the models’ personalities to life; they show the models being very playful. That to me is key branding,” says Robin E. Baskin, vice president of e-commerce at Hanover Direct Inc., which operates brands including Undergear. “Video is a big part of the engagements we have on the social networks, going from zero to 100,000 views in a very short span of time. Online video is highly important to us moving forward.”

And Undergear used another technology to foster online sharing of imagery—it created a widget that enables shoppers to place their faces over those of Undergear models so the shoppers can be the stars. The widget launch coincided with a contest that shoppers entered to become a real-life Undergear model. Shoppers voted online and at special events across the country.

“Undergear.com offers a robust customer experience for the trendiest of men’s casual wear,” says Maris Daugherty, a senior consultant at retail consulting firm J.C. Williams Group Ltd. The retailer, Daugherty adds, clearly has adopted the best practices of Internet retailing for a niche market. Back to top

A subculture online

The retailer began to see customers writing about their Vans and associated pastimes, including music, art, skateboarding and surfing. These fans were posting on blogs and social network pages their stories, design reviews and more.

There was buzz online, and Vans decided it needed to listen better, and ultimately respond. So this year it began a formal social media monitoring program, using the services of Cymfony Inc., to scrutinize what bloggers and social networkers were saying. Sometimes it joins in the conversation, and sometimes it uses what it hears to generate posts on its own blog.

In addition to the blog, Vans operates online forums to further discussion on its site. And it provides a plethora of online videos to entertain customers.

“It’s important for us to have a lot of different touch-points with our customers. They are very passionate about action sports and music and art and we’re fortunate they’re also very passionate about their relationship with Vans,” says Chris Overholser, senior communications manager responsible for lifestyle marketing at Vans, a division of VF Outdoor Inc. “Online community can bring all of our events to customers who could not attend them. And we can export our culture, getting to an even broader audience.”

Vans has added a new way to export its brand: mobile marketing. Customers can sign up to receive news on any of nine topics via text messages. Entering the mobile realm puts the shoemaker a step ahead of the competition.

“Vans is a classic example of lifestyle retailing,” says Maris Daugherty, a senior consultant at retail consulting firm J.C. Williams Group Ltd. “From skate park pages to mobile marketing to podcasts, the site visitor has no difficulty in understanding that the product this site sells is for a unique group of people. Surfing the site makes the Vans visitor feel like they can be part of something far bigger than clothing.” Back to top

Community effort

With just a few clicks, shoppers can mix and match more than 25,000 outfits at Wet Seal Inc.’s latest creation: a digital community. What started as one element of a broader web site redesign has morphed into a thriving fashion enclave with 30,000 members who’ve viewed more than two million pages at WetSeal.com.

“The digital community gives our shoppers interactive ways to create their own unique look, store their selections and share their designs with family and friends,” says Wet Seal director of e-commerce Adam Silverman. “A woman who’s newly engaged may want advice on what’s trendy and appropriate to wear to a dinner with her fiancé’s family. She can create her own look using the tools we’ve created within the community.”

The community, which Wet Seal created and launched in April with help from web site design firm Fry Inc., is a social area where shoppers can create, share, save and post outfits to a virtual runway for visitors to view and rate. They can also purchase the combinations online. Amateur designers also can add and exchange messages with their network of chosen friends and choose a stylist screen name.

Shoppers don’t have to become members to put together an outfit or rate other ensembles, but only members can save outfits to access later and to post to the virtual runway. Registered users can name their ensembles and tag them with keywords such as “beach” or “going to work.”

“What makes the site work well is the blend of social networking and e-commerce because the result is a unique interaction,” says Betsy Emery, founder and chief executive officer of Tellus, a retail web site design firm. “The community is a great way for shoppers to get ‘hands on’ with the merchandise, share with a friend and complete a purchase.” Back to top

Great expectations

“For us, it comes down to how we can serve customers better,” Kalma says. “We were doing a pretty decent job with shoes, and feedback from our customers about these products helped. And financially, expanding our product base means the opportunity for more revenue.”

A beta version, or “zeta” as Zappos calls it, of its web site redesign rolled out in April and brought new features and functions along with a new look. Changes include shifting the search box from the right to the left side of the page, a wider page, more white space and more products displayed higher on the page. Enhanced search and navigation technology tailors results and options to where a user is on the site, Kalma says.

Search engine optimization is a major strength for Zappos.com, says Judy Foster, executive creative director at Grand River Interactive, an e-commerce design and software development company. She cites use of popular search terms at the top of the home page and in the shop by department section further down the page. “They have so many product categories that it’s a huge task to get that to work,” Foster says, “but the great things they are doing with search engine optimization helps them stand apart.”