SIGIA-L Mail Archives: SIGIA-L: Summary: "Sending customer
SIGIA-L: Summary: "Sending customers from brand site to shopping site"
From: Fu-Tien Chiou (FChiou_at_genex.com)
Date: Thu Aug 23 2001 - 02:35:04 EDT
Hi! There,
A while ago I posted a question about sending customers from brand site
to a different shopping site. I had cross-posted to both CHI-WEB and
sigia-l. From the few responses that I received it seems like an issue
that many of us are facing, however, few have an answer. Thank to those
who responded. Below is a summary of responses.
:: Fu-Tien Chiou :: Information Architect
:: Genex
:: fchiou_at_genex.com :: 310-736-2097
:: www.genex.com
Roxanne O'Connell
*********************
I am working on a redesign of a project that contains a
branding/products site and a separate shopping site. I can't disclose
the exact project but it works similar to the following sites.
Example 1: Memorex
Brand/Product site:http://www.memorex.com
Shopping site:http://www.ememorex.com/
----------------------->
I went to this site and had you not told me that the second site was the
e-commerce division of the site, I never would have guessed. Does the
common user _know_ that putting a "e" in front of a word means that it's
the commerce part of the site? Is this even true? (I doubt it.) While
it's an interesting marketing idea to have multiple domain names for
your
site - search engine optimization technique - does the user know or
care?
If this is the working premise then intuit does a better job... memorex
might have done better had they tried for _buymemorex.com_, or
_shopmemorex.com_, but _ememorex.com_? What is that?
----------------------->
Example 2: Intuit
Brand/Products site=http://www.intuit.com
Shopping site=http://www.shopintuit.com/quicken_store/
My gut feeling tells me that sending customers from one site to a
shopping site with different URL and look & feel will create
confusionand dilute the branding. However, I don't have much hard data
to back this up and to present it to our client. Do you know if there
are any researches done about this issue? Such as conversion rate
comparison between single-site sites and multiple-site sites. Any input
will be appreciated.
----------------------->
While I don't have any research to back it up, I would suggest that it
isn't even the notion of having two domain names that dilutes the brand
-
or rather confuses the user - it's the labeling of the commerce part of
the
site with the ubiquitous and meaningless "e". Any link to the shopping
part of the site should be very explicit and direct... _BUY MEMOREX_.
Lynn Boyden
***************************************
could you share any results you get with me? i've got a similar
situation
with the client; they've got an e-commerce portion to their site that
will have a completely different look'n'feel from the rest. i'd love to
bring them in line...
Samantha Bailey
samantha_at_baileysorts.com
***************************************
Unfortunately, I don't know of any research (and I'll be really
interested
to see if anyone on the list knows of any) but my experience as a
consumer
confirms your gut feeling. I used to use the Martha Stewart site as an
example of this when interviewing IA candidates at Argus Associates
precisely because of the kinds of navigational and labeling issues this
approach raises.
Adrian Farouk
****************************************************
this is a problem that i am encountering at this very moment with one of
our
international clients who find that moving between .net sites to .dk
(for
example) sites can be problematic.
unfortunately i do not have any answers yet, but would be very
interested in
the results you recieve...
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