Video Playing a Featured Role in Holiday Sales

Online video solutions provider Invodo has released some new data about the use of video on retail sites during the first holiday shopping spree of the season. Invodo customers such as Verizon, Office Depot, Crocs, L'Occitane and others showed a significant rise in the number of consumer views during the Thanksgiving weekend, and some of the key points of data are below:

-    Overall, there was a 337-percent increase in Black Friday video views over last year

-    On Cyber Monday, there was an 897-percent increase in video views over last year

-    Video views on Cyber Monday in 2011 were 2.5 times the number of video views on Black Friday 2011. It is the preferred online shopping day, and video seems to be a preferred form of gathering product information for online shoppers

-    On Black Friday, Facebook accounted for 50 percent of the sharing of videos among users, with email at 36 percent and Twitter at 14 percent

-    On Cyber Monday, Facebook and Email were even at 43 percent each. Twitter was at 14 percent

-    For both Black Friday and Cyber Monday, shoppers' overall rating of the videos they viewed was 4.2 out of 5 stars

A common thread among consumers' comments on the videos they viewed was that the ability to see a product demonstrated was enhanced through video, enabling comparisons to people in size, in terms of seeing how the material in apparel moves, and seeing the features demonstrated. This led to clear enthusiasm in the comments, which explains why video can be a strong driver of conversion for ecommerce retailers.