Eye-tracking helps Charlotte Russe tie online merchandising to impulse buys
Eye tracking studies can yield information not obtainable by other means of research about how visitors interact with a web site, Johanna Murphy, senior director of user experience and design at GSI Interactive, a unit of GSI Commerce Inc., told attendees Thursday at the Internet Retailer Web Design ’08 conference in Miami.
Sharing the platform to discuss eye tracking research as one element of usability testing conducted by GSI Interactive for apparel retailer Charlotte Russe was Craig Gillan, the retailer’s e-commerce business manager. Murphy and Gillan shared insights gained from research conducted for the new e-commerce site store retailer Charlotte Russe launched in the summer of 2007.
The eye-tracking research was included in one-on-one, 50-minute sessions with customers recruited from Charlotte Russe stores. It recorded in real time where the testers viewing the site looked on its pages, and in what order. The movements of a tester’s eyes across pages on the site were tracked with a specially-equipped monitor that captures the reflection of light emitted from the monitor off the test subject’s cornea and retina.
This method of testing provides objective data that’s not filtered by the user’s logical mind or influenced by test moderators, Murphy says. For example, one surprise finding was that the testers spent a lot of time looking at lifestyle images on one page, but didn’t comment on it when describing what they had seen on the page. However, there was no way to get to those products directly from the lifestyle shot. That meant there was no way to complete an impulse buy, which represented a lost opportunity.
In response to that finding, GSI is working with Charlotte Russe on a new online merchandising feature at the site that will allow shoppers to roll over outfits featured in lifestyle images so as to immediately buy the outfit in all its elements.
“You spend a lot of money on lifestyle shots, but the question always comes up of whether it drives revenue,” says Murphy. “This makes it easier to make the case.”
Murphy notes that eye-tracking studies, while providing valuable insights, aren’t applicable across all research objectives and are most effectively used in combination with other research methods. “You need to understand what works and what doesn’t,” she says.
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