This a transcript of Jason Arend's speech and presentation on Video Commerce from Streaming Media West 2009 in Silicon Valley. PFI has used online product videos to increase conversions by 50%, raise brand awareness and reach new customers by utilizing video in an ecommerce environment. Jason also discusses the successful multichannel video strategy used to achieve these results and the future of interactive video shopping. To view the slides from this presentation go to http://www.slideshare.net/jasonarend/video-commerce-the-quiet-revolution Jason Arend jason@jasonarend.com http://www.jasonarend.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonarend http://www.twitter.com/jasonarend PFI pfiwestern.com shoppingwesternstyle.com

1. Transcript of Jason Arend's speech and presentation on Video Commerce
- The Quiet Revolution, given Nov 17, 2009 at the San Jose McEnry
Convention Center in San Jose, Ca.
Cell: 1 (417) 496-6315
Email: jasona@pfiwestern.com Or
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jasonarend
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonarend
Website: http://www.jasonarend.com
PFI: http://www.pfiwestern.com
Shopping Western Stye: http://www.shoppingwesternstyle.com
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(Slide 1 - Title Slide)
Good Afternoon. My name is Jason Arend I'm the Director E-Commerce, Online
Marketing and Creative Services for all PFI companies and production director of the
television show Shopping Western Style. PFI actually started in 1975 as Preferred
Farmers Incorporated, a dusty little store selling cattle feed and farm supplies and
though we long ago stopped carrying cattle feed we now have several successful
companies such as Saddle CIty that provides equestrian equipment to Diamond Ridge
Market that sells private label wines and we are now one of the largest, and certainly
the most innovative, single store western wear retailers in the world. PFI Western Store,
which is what I'll be focusing on today, consists of a single 50,000 square ft retail space
with over 20,000 pairs of boots on hand, many of which are designed exclusively for us,
and our online business pfiwestern.com
About a year and half ago we were looking at creative way to stay aggressive with our
marketing efforts to reach new customers and increase band awareness during what we
knew was going to be a tough economic period. We decided to purchase air time on a
niche cable & satellite network called RFD-TV that boasts 40 million subscriber and
provides programming aimed at rural america directly serving the agriculture and
equestrian communities.
This is very much the core customer base for PFI Western Store.
(Next, Slide 2 - Television Show Video Preview)
We created a sort of western home shopping show that features the latest in boots,
saddles and western fashion. It is extremely important that we keep the show as down
to earth as possible so we shoot everything in-house, unscripted, using representatives
from our manufacturers and in-store product experts as talent. Often the product
designers themselves come on to talk about how the product was developed to directly
improve the lives and activities that are relevant to the western and rural lifestyle. We
use the show primarily as a direct sales, merchandising and educational tool which has
worked really well for us and we will continue with this format moving forward. But we
are now producing other types of web only video content such as product fit guides and
product care how-to's that are embedded directly in product detail pages. We've now
taken Shopping Western Style on the Road for our "American Made Tour," a series
showcasing products we sell that are made right here in America and presenting fun,
educational tours of their factories and some of the remarkable handcrafted products
that they produce. This has worked really well with this type of demographic.

2. By building close partnerships with our manufacturers we've been able to cover almost
all costs using CO-OP and advertising dollars. And work closely with them to make
Shopping Western style an important part of their promotional and product launches,
allowing us to be the first to show the latest product in the western industry.
Once I had the production workflow for the television show running fairly efficiently I
knew it was crucial to find ways to utilize this content online. You don't have to have a
lot of resources or money to start producing product videos and merchandising content
online. At that point we had the content but we literally had NO budget to build and carry
out our online video strategy… None at all.
(Next, Slide 3 - Interesting Facts)
In about 3 months, on top of our normal work load, we were able to build a massive
branded video commerce website developed completely in-house by myself and
programmer, Myke Bates. Utilizing open source technologies such as Wordpress and
Flowplayer and integrating them with Interact, our existing ecommerce platform. Again,
production, photography, design, development, everything is done in house, nothing is
outsourced, and I think we've built a uniquely enjoyable shopping experience that rivals
even the largest video commerce merchants.
Obviously I am not even close to being a cowboy, One of the things I've learned as I've
tried to get a grip on this industry is that a good part of the customer base is several
years behind on technology, actually 37% of our online visitors are over the age of 50
and from a rural environment they are still very nervous about purchasing and divulging
personal b& financial information online. That is all starting to change, having the same
product experts you would find in our store demonstrating our products online has
allowed us to give our website a human face and build trust with the customer where we
can now present cutting edge technologies in a friendly, enjoyable way that is relevant
to them. Video is the one tool that seems to be resonating across all age demographics
for us online.
(Next, Slide 4 - State of PFI's Video Commerce Program)
We now have over 55 full 26 min episodes of our television show and and about 500
pieces of unique video content currently online. On Average we are seeing a 50%
increase in conversion rates on products that have video and a 27% reduction in
returns. we are also seeing Increases in average order value, increase in return visits
and longer average time on site. Nearly a quarter of our daily visitors viewing on-site
videos. It has completely changed the way we think about online merchandising and
customer engagement.
As Justin said before we really are using a strategy of video everywhere,
(Next, Slide 5 - Multichannel Video Strategy)
From the television show to the branded video website, to product pages, landing
pages, syndication to video sharing sites, social networks, and we are now using video
in the majority of our email campaigns and seeing 2 -3 times the click throughs when
supported by video previews. We also provide all of our video content through RSS
feeds and syndication to the iTunes store as a podcast where our customers can
subscribe to the show for free and and sync it to there ipods, iphones or itunes
compatible mobile devices.

3. Since the very beginning of the show we have been syndicating all of our video content
to about 10 of the top online video sharing communities. This is the one area that has
been the least effective in driving traffic to our site. Users really aren't looking directly for
our type of content on youtube. But we have automated and streamlined our workflow
enough that it is not costing us anything and it still helps with brand visibility and SEO.
(Next, Slide 6 - Video SEO Results)
The SEO benefits are one of the most attractive aspects of using online product video
not only are we starting to see substantial increases in our organic rankings but we can
absolutely dominate the video search results in google, often taking up 9 of the top ten
results for various related keywords. And in Bing & Yahoo our content is often taking up
over 90% of the video search results on the first page for targeted keywords!
Lately we've been working on ways of increasing customer interaction by encouraging
our customers to share stories and testimonials online and have started a new program
called "Ask the Experts" where we take questions from our viewers and answer them on
the television show really to further position ourselves as the authority on the western
industry and lifestyle.
It isn't just online that we are seeing substantial increases in traffic and sales. Out Store
is very much becoming a tourist destination in and of it self. I came up with and
developed with Myke Bates an in-store Kiosk system that aids in customer data
acquisition and allows us to track what triggered the customers to come into our store,
what products they are interested in and what advertising efforts are working. We found
that nearly a third of visitors coming to the store in the last 6 months are coming from
watching the show on television, And another third are coming from seeing us online.
After I broke down the kiosk users addresses into latitude and longitude I found that the
average customer is traveling over 300 miles as the crow flies to come to our store, and
obviously the actual distance travelled is greater than that. But this number absolutely
blew us away
One downside to using video content that was originally targeted to a television
audience is that it doesn't quite follow best practices for online product videos and we
will be rolling out a ton of new content next year that are short 30-60 sec product
walkthroughs made specifically for the web with less fluff than what's necessary for the
television show. They are actually very similar to what Zappos is working on but with
more emphasis on lifestyle.
While we are extremely happy with the state of our current video strategy there are
many new areas I'm currently exploring as we move forward, from infrequent Video
MMS advertisements to text message subscribers, iphone and mobile applications,
interactive in-store videos, augmented reality virtual mirrors, and an all encompassing
interactive video shopping experiences through touch-enabled devices. Existing and
emerging multi touch technology such as a iphone, palm pre or the long rumored apple
tablets are providing us channel in which to step beyond our existing front-ends, simplify
our UI's & navigation and provide a more engaging experience for our users. Interactive
video on these devices is what interests me the most.
I very much see potential in rich interactive product videos where you can click on an
item and get more info on the object from wikipedia, find a store that carries it or add a
product to the cart from directly within the video. Similar approaches can be taken by
online entertainment and video content providers to generate additional revenue

4. streams using in-video PPC, advertising partnerships or affiliate models.
(Next, Slide 7 - Interactive Video Commerce Demo)
Here's an example I've up together of where I kind of see things going…
Lets say you are watching Curb Your Enthusiasm online and you want to know what the
shiny computer is that Jerry Seinfeld is using, you can simply click on it and instantly
bring up more information on it, quickly see the additional images and media, see other
items that appear in this video and again you can click on anything thing that has been
tagged in the video so if you literally want this desk just click on it you want the sports
coat Larry David is wearing just click on it and you can then add it to you cart, go to
there retailers site put the video back in fullscreen and come back it to it later, there are
a lot of possibilities with this kind of a approach. And the UI for multitouch devices would
be simplified a little more.
Video is very much the future of ecommerce and in many ways the web as a whole. It is
important that retailers start planning now on how to integrate video into their overall
online marketing strategies, before they fall behind. As I said before, our main goal was
to increase brand awareness and reach new customers after just a few years we are
now shipping to over 40 countries in what is already our strongest year ever and we are
just getting started.
Thank You.
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Transcript of Jason Arend's speech and presentation on Video Commerce - The Quiet
Revolution, given Nov 17, 2009 at the San Jose McEnry Convention Center in San
Jose, Ca.
Cell: 1 (417) 496-6315
Email: jasona@pfiwestern.com Or
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jasonarend
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonarend
Website: http://www.jasonarend.com
PFI: http://www.pfiwestern.com
Shopping Western Stye: http://www.shoppingwesternstyle.com