Let’s face it…some of us were not born with the innate ability to mix and match clothing items successfully.  Fortunately, companies are responding to this need by incorporating virtual mannequins to their websites to help users pick out clothes.  Get the Millennial’s reviews and reactions to Martin + Osa, one website that is helping fashion victims and confused customers alike.

Martin + Osa
Martin + Osa is an American Eagle Outfitters company that provides refined  casual wear for customers. One of my favorite aspects of the site is the “Layer Your Own Look” tool which allows customers to put together a unique outfit by using drag and drop items of clothing and placing them on a virtual mannequin to see how pieces look together. Once a customer has made an outfit they want to buy, they can either email the outfit to a friend, buy the outfit they put together, or clear the outfit and start over.

The cool thing about this feature is that it helps you get a visual image of what the shirt, shorts, pants, dress, or shoes actually look like on a figure. It helps potential shoppers decide what items look best paired together, which makes them more confident in their purchase of a whole outfit. I think this feature will also help increase the amount of each sale, because most people who use this feature will decide to purchase the complete outfit they custom made, not just one or two pieces like they would on other clothing sites.

I’m planning on using this feature to put together several outfits for upcoming events, such as holiday parties and family reunions, and then emailing them to my mom or friends to see which selections they like best. I love that no matter which combination you put together, it always looks great because each clothing item is designed to go well with one another. The one thing I would change is instead of using a virtual mannequin to display clothing choices, take it one step up and replace it with an interactive model so customers can see how the clothing looks on an actual person.

Millennial Musings offers insight into the newest generation of online shoppers – with reviews reactions straight from those who represent this strong and growing market segment[tags] fashion, fashion week, e-commerce, eCommerce, online shopping, personalization [/tags]  

Turns out that online retailers are quite optimistic about the upcoming year, according to a recent report from Shop.org. Despite changes in the economy, many online merchants have a positive view of the outlook through the first half of next year as they expect to outperform offline retail and continue benefitting from strong consumer interest in e-commerce. On average, respondents said they expect their online businesses to hit annual growth of 25%: more here.

We just got our September issue of the E-consultancy.com newsletter and saw an interesting interview with Thomas Cook’s e-commerce director, Russell Gould, discussing the company’s efforts to increase online conversions. He offers his perspective on user reviews, video, co-browsing, and multi-channel trends he’s seeing.  And he talks about the importance of continual analysis in improving Thomas Cook’s customer experience. 

Retailers saw the lack of consumer satisfaction throughout August 2008. Compared to the satisfaction survey  from this past May, overall satisfaction dropped across all categories during the August 2008 cycle. While the highest customer satisfaction rating came from the area of product range / choice available on the Websites consumers shop on; the biggest drop in satisfaction was seen in response to queries.  One solution retailers can implement to improve satisfaction in response to queries is click to call and click to chat technology: more here.
[tags] retailers, e-commerce, eCommerce, online shopping, consumer, customer satisfaction [/tags]

A shopper who orders online for in-store pickup is more likely to find the item ready and waiting when she arrives at the store this year than she did in 2007, according to a mystery shopper survey conducted by The E-tailing Group. More and more, retailers publicize the in-store pickup option on home pages and more are putting it on product detail page: more here.

Retailers are quickly learning the benefits of having a presence on social networking sites such as Facebook. Shop.org has included a link discussing the recent findings of STORES magazine, focusing on how retailers are (and aren’t) using and measuring social media.  Retailers should definitely be aware of this trend and determine exactly how they can maximize their presence in the Web 2.0 space.

As we discussed in a previous post, m-commerce technology firm, Volantis, has already caught on to this trend of utilizing their presence on Facebook, by allowing customers to use their profiles to share and recommend recent purchases…thereby creating a ‘social marketplace’ for consumers.
[tags] Facebook, social networking, web 2.0, e-commerce, eCommerce, online shopping, social media, consumers [/tags]