Rich web experience and a little fun are key merchandising trends

With Internet retailing into its second decade, there’s no shortage of new product display technology designed to decrease the gap between what customers experience online vs. in store. In the relatively short period of the last 10 years, basics such as the ability to zoom in on a product image have become mainstream techniques.

Now retailers and technology developers are building on that earlier base. The new generation of visual online merchandising tools is more dynamic, richer in detail, more interactive and in many cases just plain more fun for the consumer.

Buydig.com, for example, a consumer electronics e-retailer of cameras and other digital equipment, has a specific objective when making decisions about how to merchandise its products: it wants shoppers to have all the information they need to make a purchase decision within one click of entering the site.

For Buydig.com, that thinking drove a decision to add interactive product tours containing video, animation and other rich media content from vendor Tentoe Inc. to the site earlier this year. “People are always looking for as close to a hands-on experience as they can get,” says director of marketing Jack Baum. “The tours take our product description up to the next level.”

What’s true of shoppers at Buydig.com is true of online shoppers everywhere, experts say: When they can’t see or handle a product first-hand, they want the next best thing. “The closest we can come to putting all the data and information and experience in their hands—that’s our goal,” Baum says.