Zappos.com Sells 6-30% More Merchandise When Accompanied By Video Demos

While the rest of the online video world seems to be paying attention to ad formats, the death of pre-roll, YouTube's ineffectiveness, and video content monetization, a quiet revolution is brewing in the commerce industry. At the Streaming Media West show last month, we had a great session with speakers from the retail industry who explained just how crucial video is to their business.

On of our speakers, Rico Nasol, a Content Team Senior Manager at Zappos.com gave out some great details on what video means to their business, how they utilize video today and what their goals are for next year. Rico was also one of our speakers that was interviewed live on Fox Business News which you can see here. Also, check out this link for a longer interview with Zappos from the show.

The best stat Rico gave out was that Zappos sells anywhere between 6-30% more merchandise, depending on the item, when accompanied by product description videos. Rico says that by the end of next year, Zappos will have ten full working video studios, with the goal of producing around 50,000 product videos by 2010, up from the 8,000 videos they have on the site today. If you want to see a longer interview with Rico, you can check out his red carpet interview on the StreamingMedia.com website.

I get the sense that a lot of people in the online video world forget just how much is going on outside of the media and entertainment industry, or are simply not aware of what's taking place. The commerce, enterprise and government sectors are all doing more with online video today, with positive results, than we have seen so far seeing in the broadcast world. If you're interested in following the online video market in the commerce industry, then you need to check out Justin Foster's blog at www.video-commerce.org and Xavier Casanova's blog at www.videoretailer.org