By Kate McLoughlin
I realized something about online journalism today while shopping on
oldnavy.com: Newspapers could learn a lot from the retail world.
For whatever reason, well-known companies that sell clothes,
electronics, toys, etc. have made what some would consider a seamless
transition into the Internet age. They have not been shown up by
Web-only stores, though a large number of those Web-only stores popped up.
Take a store like Old Navy. Or, for argument’s sake, let’s say the
Gap, since it was founded before the Web. The Gap took off after it
was launched in 1969 — by the early 1970s, the U.S. had dozens of Gap
stores. Then, in the early 1990s, people started talking about the
Internet. Newspaper people heard them talking, and Gap’s people heard
them talking.
So why does the Gap have a Web site that features its products like
this: http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=13658&pid=502767 while
newspapers have Web sites that feature their products like this:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5313409.html …?
Is a pleated silk-tie dress that much more exciting than someone
getting 15 years in a murder plot…or, does the Gap just convince you
it is? I like the dress, but I’m sure the murder plot story would be
more enlightening to look at for 10 minutes. The difference between
the sites, in my opinion? The Gap doesn’t take visitors to its Web
site for granted — no matter how many people look at that dress, if
no one buys it, they’re not making money. Newspapers, on the other
hand, seem to think that all they have to do is get people onto their
sites and they’ll be all set. They need to take a lesson from the Gap
and learn to keep them there, engaged and looking for more.
The Gap dresses up every single one of its products the best it can –
zoom in to see detail on the hemline, see several views of the dress,
read about what fabric it’s made of, read a description of the
dress and learn whether it needs to be dry-cleaned — they’re giving
people the same information, and often more, than they’d get in the
store. They even suggest other products you might like (with photos).
Newspapers aren’t there yet.
If a journalist-minded guy designed this site, I wouldn’t be surprised
to hear him object to showing the back side of the dress or any other
article of clothing.
“If they want that information, they can come into the store!” he
would say. “We need them here — that’s how we make money…people
always end up seeing more things to buy when they set foot in a
store.”
You know, kind of like…”If people want that information, they’ll
have to buy a copy of the paper!” For whatever reason, the Gap
realizes people most likely won’t come into the store to find out what
a dress is made of, while many newspaper people are still telling
themselves that withholding photos, parts of stories or updates will
drive people to their print edition. It doesn’t happen.
Speaking of updates, when was the last time you saw the Gap (or any
other retailer for that matter) have an old update sitting on its
site? Example: It’s Saturday and the Gap is advertising for its
blowout Black Friday sale, which ended Friday night. I don’t think
I’ve ever seen a mistake like that in retail; I see old/expired
stories posted as updates on newspaper sites all the time.
What really gets me wondering is the fact that online clothing stores
like the Gap face so many challenges newspapers do not, yet they’ve
been able to use the Web to their advantage. Readers don’t
need to try their newspaper on before they know whether they want the
information…they don’t need to feel the material to decide if
they’ll want to hold it …they don’t have to wonder if the color they
see on their screens is true to the color of the garment. Oh, and
there’s no shipping and handling issues.
And it’s a good thing retailers are paying attention to the Web –
it’s been playing a bigger and bigger role in consumer decisions.
According to research being released today by Shop.org, which is part
of the NRF, and BIGresearch, the Internet will influence 30.2 percent of
holiday sales this year, up from 28.9 percent last year.
Oh, and you can’t ignore the fact that more than 70 percent of holiday
shoppers plan to go online rather than wait in line, as cnn.com puts
it. Only 6 percent of shoppers are going to avoid the Web altogether. And
journalists think THEIR audiences are “straying” into the online world …
