Video Sells on the Web

Before co-founding NetVideoMaker.Com I spent more than thirty years managing department and chain store operations in Canada. My employers were members of the Retail Council of Canada, either before I arrived or shortly thereafter, and for decades I received and read their industry publication "Canadian Retailer" which today circulates to 14,000 subscribers. Now that I'm out of the industry I'm finally being featured in the magazine's Jan/Feb 2008 edition - thanks to our innovative "SiteGreeter" transparent video overlay tool. There isn't any doubt about the great fit between a retail promotion calendar and a "SiteGreeter", to meet, direct and sell web site visitors. Web sales by retailers have reached just less than 7% of total retail sales but surprisingly, conversion rates and the percentage of shopping carts abandoned are virtually unchanged since 2001. Conversion rates per 100 visitors sit at 3.1% and cart abandonment is actually up (in 2005) to 50% from 47% in 2001. Annual average sales growth of more than 100% obscured the lack of progress on these key metrics, but those days are gone, with forecasters predicting sales growth through 2010 of 14-15% annually. Those aren't bad rates but they are going to represent bad news to many retailers accustomed to explosive growth - and focusing on more traffic and better performance is the new gold rush. Getting more prospects into the funnel is generating tens of billions of dollars in search-related investment and in new on-line advertising, much of it in the form of thevideo and rich media initiatives in which we specialize.

Many if not most independent retailers in Canada are already juggling as many balls as they can keep in the air. If you're one of them, please get in touch with us, through the web site contact area or by calling me directly at 416-823-31OO, in Toronto. We know the web, we know retailing and we have the sharpest tools available for making them work together powerfully and productively.