Multichannel Surfing

Something stood out in my mind Saturday as I stood alone in an aisle at my local Home Depot. Merchants with mobile sites are discovering that customers are actually surfing for product information while they are in the store. So with no one to help me find the right submersible pump to replace my old and burnt-out pal, I figured I’d surf for product specs on my smartphone.

The good news was Home Depot did a great job optimizing its Website for m-commerce. The bad news is the optimization was pure aesthetic. While the fonts were clear and simple to read (and there was an option to make the fonts larger or smaller), the product selection on my search for submersible pumps brought me a bunch of items that were not on the rack in front of me. more

I wrote this piece yesterday for Multichannel Merchant about updated Federal Trade Commission guidelines that will force bloggers who receive swag or cash in exchange of a blog post to disclose their relationship with product or service.

And after I heard Emilio Amodei, founder of BlogVertise, discuss how his company can get your product blogged about by hundreds of bloggers, I had a red flag go up.

I can see someone with a product or a service wanting to get exposed by bloggers back in 2005 or before. But now we’re in an era of product ratings and recommendations. And consumers are savvy enough to go to, say, Amazon.com and see what people who have used a certain product has to say about it, rather than trusting Joe Blogger who may just say nice things for the payout.

It’s all a matter of trust, and I think Joe Consumer is going to trust sites with ratings and recommendations before a blogger.

What do you think? Is the blogosphere a reputable enough place yet? Or for that matter, are readers smart enough to see a product pitch as a product pitch?

Blockbuster has not made an announcement about this, but they may as well since they filed this 8-K yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Blockbuster will close more stores than expected, and shift its business to accommodate 21st Century video watchers.

Larger stores are going bye-bye (really, how much floor space do you need to showcase videos?) and smaller urban concepts are coming in.

Blockbuster will take on NetFlix by growing its order-online-receive-in-the-mail model. It will replace real estate leases by placing vending kiosks in stores and other locations (like RedBox does). And it will offer videos on demand through cable providers and on the Internet.

Could this mean the ultimate end of bricks and mortar for Blockbuster? It sure sounds like it, as it discusses the expense involved in its operations.

Does it mean you’ll eventually get your cup of Starbucks from a vending machine instead of a human being? That’s another story for another day. But if a Blockbuster can disappear from your local shopping center, a Starbucks could leave, too.

Love of hate Brett Favre, you have to admit this is a funny commercial. It’s like they say: Timing is everything. And it’s safe to say Sears beat the clock with this gem.

It takes Bezos six minutes to cut to the chase about the deal, but is worth watching.

I heard some great news last night, as a consumer, about Old Navy getting into the licensed merchandise business. According to the news on one of the New York television stations, Old Navy will soon be selling NFL and NCAA licensed apparel.

Here I am thinking Old Navy can fill the void of Steve & Barry’s, especially since the reporter used the word “affordable.” Plus Old Navy would probably be smart enough to not put a load of UConn sweatshirts in a California location, and would use the power of e-commerce to sell a New York Jets t-shirt to a fan in Iowa.

Then I read the news on Bloomberg. more