So a few weeks ago within ShopLocal.com, a key switch was made to the method that most users of the site browse the weekly ads. The traditional HTML powered weekly ad experience was replaced with a CircularCentral powered experience. Whenever a drastic change is made to a core feature of a web site, there is always some real risk associated with user adoption and usage.
Here is the new CircularCentral based weekly ad viewer that is front and center within ShopLocal.com
Well the votes are in. Users are making their voices heard loud in clear, in terms of page views per visit (which is really a measure of content consumption). On average over a 25 day period (1/1/2010 – 1/25/2010), the users of the new CircularCentral weekly ad experience showed a lift of 160% in the number of pages views per visit.
Wow. For a publisher site (such as ShopLocal.com) that means real money. Every time a publisher can increase the number of page views that users create, that in turns creates more display ad inventory. Even if the inventory becomes remnant and monetized via ad network backfill, this is extra money in the pocket of the publisher (be it at a lower CPM that direct sold inventory).
And from a user perspective, it’s a win as well. Essentially what this change in weekly ad viewers did was to tear down barriers so as to make viewing and interacting with the weekly ads easier, faster and an overall richer user experience. Those are qualities that users will always reward you for, typically in terms of using and engaging with your product more.
As a side note, the team did end up keeping around the traditional HTML weekly ad experience for a few reasons such as SEO benefits (the Google bot much prefers HTML based content over Flash content) and for those users that are either on slower internet connections or just have an established preference of browsing via this more traditional method. In either case, the traditional option is not the default method for viewing the weekly ad content and it is downplayed.
The results are so clear - uses interact and consume more content within the new CircularCentral view - at an increased rate of 160%
As a side note, the team did end up keeping around the traditional HTML weekly ad experience for a few reasons such as SEO benefits (the Google bot much prefers HTML based content over Flash content) and for those users that are either on slower internet connections or just have an established preference of browsing via this more traditional method. In either case, the traditional option is not the default method for viewing the weekly ad content and it is downplayed.
Constant improvement is a mantra here at ShopLocal. To that end, the team knew there was room for improvement in our popularity ranking algorithm that we call “Wisdom of the Crowds” (WoC).
The current system for determining product popularity only counted those products that a shopper specifically clicked on. There are a number of product level clicks that are counted in terms of a shopper expressing interest such as a product detail page, a buy online click or an add to a shopping list click (which are cumulatively called Expressions of Interest). Not any more. The ShopLocal team has begun collecting and counting another key piece of consumer interest data – product rollovers.
By factoring in both product rollover data AND expression of interest data, the overall Wisdom of the Crowds ranking data is all the richer and accurate. This process of collecting and using rollover data for SmartCircular sites is underway and will complete over the next month or so for all clients, SC sites and versions of SmartCircular.
At a macro level, what we have learned so far about rollover data is:
- Rollovers are on average about 5x as common as Expressions Of Interest. This means by adding them to the Wisdom of the Crowds calculation, the overall popularity ranking data should become much more accurate and more truly reflect actual consumer interest.
- Rollover usage varies significantly by retailer. No surprise given all the variation in UI/UX out there within weekly ad sites. Also some sites don’t even use rollovers. Or on other sites, the rollovers are down played. In any case, we are now tracking them all so as to extract the most useful and complete set of consumer interest data as possible.
Illustrated here is a specific product level rollover that has been triggered by a user rolling over a predefined hotspot region that is overlaid on top of the circular page view images. When talking about rollover tracking, what is actual being tracked is the number of times, for a specific product, a rollover is triggered and left open for at least 2 seconds. If it meets that criteria, it would be counted as one (1) rollover for the product.
Here is a quick snapshot of some early returns from a 6 day sample set of data across 20 retailers:
- # of total product level exposures: 1,006,078,269
- # of total product rollovers: 25,620,887
- # of total product specific indicators of interests expressed: 4,532,430
- Overall ratio of interest divided by rollovers: 18%
- Rollover trigger rate (of overall total product exposure) : 2.55%
- Interest trigger rate (of overall total product exposure): 0.45%
- Total CTR (rollovers + interest): 3.00%
UPDATE 1/21: The ShopLocal analyst team just today cranked out a nice little additional stat on this topic that is worth sharing. The correlation of interest/exposure ranks compared to the rollover/exposure ranks, on average overall is 0.6636 Meaning that rollovers are for most sites a good measure of interest. Maybe think of it this way. This correlation helps prove that the items a user rolls over are likely the very ones that they end up taking other subsequent action at a later point in their site visit.
Aggregated sites are helpful tools for consumers trying to get a wide selection and broad coverage. Over the last few years, a number of weekly ad / circular / newspaper ad focused aggregator sites have sprung up. Some retailer’s online weekly ads are starting to see low single digit percent traffic coming from these sources. Not bad, given a small % of a really large number is still a decent chunk of free organic traffic.
This really is a win-win-win situation for all parties. These aggregator sites make a tiny bit of revenue via online display ads & Google AdSense, ShopLocal gets good inbound links (great for page rank and SEO) and the retailer gets targeted free inbound traffic to their weekly ad site.
There are a growing number of weekly ad aggregator sites as nearly all retailers that do newspaper circular advertising are now publishing their weekly ads online within their .com site
- SundaySaver.com (by far the strongest in nearly every search engine’s organic rankings which links to 187 weekly ad sites, many of which are ShopLocal operated)
- Spoofee.com (links to 49 weekly ad sites, most of which are ShopLocal operated)
- ShopLocal.com (aggregation of all the retail circulars content that ShopLocal creates)
- WeeklyAdCirculars.com (links to 207 weekly ad sites, many of which are ShopLocal operated)
- DealsPl.us (links to 34 weekly ad sites, most of which are ShopLocal operated)
- Deals2Buy.com (links to 54 weekly ad sites, most of which are ShopLocal operated)
- AdFinderTV.com (appears to only be for Southern California as it is run by an CBS affiliate)
- Flyerland.ca (only features Canadian retailer flyers which a number of which are ShopLocal operated)
- GrocerySavings.ca (only features Canadian retailer flyers which a few are ShopLocal operated)
- SacBee.com (only features retailers within the Sacremento, CA area)
- Zip2Save.com (US version of Flyerland that features a limited number of circulars so the content is on the lite side currently)
The market has spoken. Getting a branded iPhone application live is becoming table stakes. The biggest retailers are already live, with many more in the pipe coming shortly as I am expecting a release rush before the holiday 2009 season begins. Many of these apps have already had numerous production releases which have continued to increase the usefulness of many of them. That is a great sign that these retailers are seeing real value in these apps, as they would not continue to refine them otherwise.
Below, we’ll explore in more detail the Best Buy, Sears (Sears2Go) and JCPenney (JCP) iPhone apps as they currently represent the “best of” the retail category.
As of this moment in time, this is the complete list of retail iPhone apps that are live.
The true product and deals centric retail iPhone app list today looks like:
- Sears
- Best Buy
- JCPenney
- Target
- Amazon
- Mastercard Priceless Picks (sort of, its a stretch as this spans)
There are a few other non-product and deal centric apps within retail which are:
- Macy*s
- Barnes & Noble
- Target Finder
- Wal-Mart
So if one was to try and find what’s in common with these three top retail iPhone apps, it would be:
- All have easy to use store locators
- All have some concepts of deals
- All have a variation of a shopping list (or a way of collecting items of interest)
Within these three featured apps, there are many other features, but these three (3) are the core basis of what I would suggest is the minimal marketable feature set for a retailer with a large store footprint.
Here is the Best Buy iPhone app broken down:
Main screen. Best looking overall for sure.
If a user wants to see "deals" they first need to narrow down what category of interest they want to view
Once a deal category is selected, a result set of appropriate deals are returned
Then a user can drill into a specific item of interest
All items can be added to this shopping list function called "Favorites" which is nothing more than a collection point for items of interest
The store locator is really simple and only brings up nearby locations to the user
And some basic store details are available with nice click to call and click to map buttons
Next up is the brand new JCPenney iPhone application:
The app immediately starts up and needs a user to interact with it by choosing a category of interest
This is the weirdest screen. Not a fan. This is a view that should be skipped and the user instead take to a list of relevant results
This is one of the nine deals Women's apparel deals. I missed the fact the first time that one can scroll left and right through all nine item results. Cool UI idea, just needs a stronger visual clue to help indicate that this interaction is possible
All items can also be added to this version of a shopping list, again called "Favorites"
The store locator is also very simple, with all of the details being forced up to this level. There is no store details page, but the push to call and push to map buttons are more prominent
Finally, here is the Sears iPhone app, branded Sears2Go exposed:
Nice home screen that balances some marketing messages and individual items
Within deals, it is a bit all over the place. Not a lot of organization of this content
If an deal item is clicked, then the longest item detail page (due to the mass amount of product related data that is being exposed) is brought up
The store sub-tab is straight forward and brings up a list of nearby stores
The store detail page by far has the most store level info available, but lacks a push to map button
ROBO (research online, buy offline) type shopping is the core premise that ShopLocal is built upon. The team has tried many different tactics over the years to measure the effects of this marketplace principle. From May 14th thru June 21 of 2009, ShopLocal concluded yet another nine (9) question survey based analysis of web2store shopping. We got 24 large US retailers to participate which equated to 9,656 normal, everyday consumers fully completing the survey. Below are the results.
Question 1. Did you read this week’s print Circular/Weekly Ad? (Found in your local newspaper or at the store.)
Question 2. How often do you visit our store?
- Several times a week: 16%
- Once a week: 22%
- Two or three times a month: 30%
- Once a month: 21%
- Once or twice a year: 11%
- Never: 2%
Question 3. After viewing the online Circular/Weekly Ad, are you more or less likely to visit our store in the next week?
- Much more likely: 30%
- More likely: 40%
- About the same: 25%
- Less likely: 3%
- Much less likely: 3%
Question 4. Have you visited the online Circular/Weekly Ad before?
Question 5. Which of the following statements describes the reason(s) you visited the online Circular/Weekly Ad? (check all that apply)
- I am looking for new specials/deals before visiting my local store: 66%
- I am looking for new specials/deals before making a purchase online: 11%
- I am researching a specific product that I want to purchase: 19%
- I am deciding whether to visit my local store: 17%
- I am comparison shopping across multiple retailers: 17%
- I am not looking for anything in particular, but I like to browse the new specials/deals: 14%
- Other, please specify: 9%
Question 6. Were you planning on making a purchase in our store before visiting the online Circular/Weekly Ad?
Question 7. How often do you visit the online Circular/Weekly Ad?
- Every day: 2%
- Several times a week: 11%
- Once a week: 30%
- Two or three times a month: 16%
- Once every two or three months: 11%
- This is my first time: 30%
Question 8. How often have you made a purchase from our website after visiting the online Circular/Weekly Ad?
- Very often: 5%
- Often: 7%
- Sometimes: 15%
- Rarely: 16%
- Very rarely: 58%
Question 9. On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being never, 5 being neutral, and 10 being always, how likely is it that you would recommend the online Circular/Weekly Ad to a friend or relative?
- Never (1): 4%
- Very Seldom (2): 2%
- Somewhat Not Likely (3): 2%
- Probably Not (4): 2%
- Neutral (5): 26%
- Probably Would (6): 8%
- Good Chance (7): 12%
- Somewhat likely (8): 16%
- Very Likely (9): 8%
- Always (10): 19%
AVERAGE SCORE: 6.8
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(4.50 out of 5)
Comments: 3