Change the Rules (Photo by Satish Krishnamurthy, cc-by license, http://www.flickr.com/photos/unlistedsightings/3252766510/, rotated and cropped)
Some of the most interesting innovations in eCommerce are based on simple changes to the context of the customer-store interaction. Private Event Retail, for example, turned on its head the idea that your goal is to be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, and changed “limited inventory” from a weakness into a strength.
In this post I discuss two other examples of changing the game by changing the rules in eCommerce: TurnTo and CureBit. Both attempt to drive consumer behavior more effectively by changing the basic timing of events: one in product reviews and recommendations, the other in deal sharing.
When I got the above email from Sears inviting me into a new social shopping experience, I hoped that they’d found a way to combine MySears and Sears.com together more contextually and pervasively, letting me move easily between the “get advice before you buy” approach of MySears.com (with its action verbs being join, explore, and connect) and the shopping focused Sears.com.
They haven’t, but what they have done is introduce more social functionality into the shop. Visit sears.com and in the utility navigation right underneath the multi-brand bar (Sears, Kmart, Crafstman, Kenmore, Lands End, etc) you should see an option which toggles between “visit our social site” and “leave our social site.” Clicking on “visit our social site” and you’re greated with this splash screen explaining the new experience: Read more…
