Roots Canada, the apparel designer and retailer that equips the U.S. Olympic team, is drawing large amounts of web visitors to Roots.com by placing content on sites like ThisNext.com and TotallyLoveIt.com, says James Connell, director of e-commerce, digital marketing and new media.
Connell and members of his staff post information related to apparel and other products on several social networking sites, including Facebook.com, MySpace.com and ShareYourLook.com. “I recommend products from Roots as well as other retailers,” Connell says.
The power of the social networking sites, he adds, is that they enable relatively small retailers to play on an equal field with larger retailers in building brands. “Big brands can’t generate and dominate trends the way they used to,” he says, adding that Roots is already getting “significant traffic” from ThisNext.com and other sites.
While expecting such sites to have a growing impact on retailing, Connell figures that retailers can deploy similar applications on their own web sites. “I could see that happening on retail sites, where customers would set up their own profiles and tell others what they like,” he says.
Connell is speaking at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition, June 4-7 in San Jose, in a session entitled Elevating the Retail Chain E-Commerce Chief.
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