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By BOB TEDESCHI
NEXT on board the blogging bandwagon: e-tailer.
Online merchants are starting to test Web logs, which are akin to
online diaries, in hopes of giving their stores more personality and
giving customers a reason to return even when they're not in the mood
to buy. But for companies like Bluefly.com, eHobbies, Ice.com and others, blogs are so far afield from typical retail functions that they will take time to master.
Take eHobbies. The site, which sells remote-controlled helicopters
and other toys for grown-ups, added a blog in May, where it posts
photos from trade shows and shots of employees. The captions range from
boosterish to boring; many of the links on the blog lead to an eHobbies
product page.
“There's a lot of good stuff in doing the blog, and some
not-so-good stuff,” said Seth Greenberg, chief executive of the
company, which is based in La Mirada, Calif.
Mr. Greenberg said the blog allowed eHobbies to project the
homespun image that sometimes eluded even small companies like his,
which has only 25 employees. “It lets us pull back the curtain and show
how we're a company of hobbyists who love participating in the things
they're buyers for,” he said. “It humanizes us.”
In addition to featuring the link to the blog at the top of the
eHobbies home page, the company will soon begin promoting the blog in
e-mail messages to customers, and hiding coupon codes in the blog to
give people incentives to visit, Mr. Greenberg said.
“Hobbyists are a little strange,” Mr. Greenberg said. “They'll like things like that.”
The blog's visuals will also improve markedly from the current
collection, which are pictures taken with Mr. Greenberg's cameraphone.
In the coming months, it will feature audio and video clips of
hobbyists and their toys.
So far, at least, Mr. Greenberg said he had not encountered any
significant disadvantages in blogging, aside from the occasional
difficulty of posting pictures to the site. But analysts see pitfalls
in these retail narratives.
If sites do not closely track and edit visitor comments, they may
expose themselves to backlash from readers who see inappropriate
language, or they could lose prospective customers who read scorching
reviews, said Kenneth Cassar, an analyst with the Internet consultancy
Nielsen//NetRatings. He noted, though, that vigilant editing could
prevent such mishaps.
More importantly, Mr. Cassar said, sites must figure out how to
keep customers from straying from the store to the blog without ever
returning to shop. Because typical blogs feature links to articles
elsewhere on the Web, they can represent a one-way ticket away from the
site.
Such is the dilemma faced by executives of Ice.com, an online
jeweler based in Montreal. Ice.com has created three blogs in the last
six months: a celebrity jewelry site (SparkleLikeTheStars.com), a question-and-answer site (JustAskLeslie.com) and a company news site (blog.ice.com).
Shmuel Gniwisch, Ice.com's chief executive, said the company was
“having an internal struggle” about whether to put links to its blogs
on Ice.com itself. Currently, people reach them through search engines
and links from other blogs.
“Our blog people want the links on our site, but our brand people
say it'll take people off the site,” Mr. Gniwisch said. “We'll probably
test it and see what it does.”
Within the blogs, of course, Ice.com could merely delete links that
lead anywhere but the store. “But then it's not a blog,” Mr. Gniwisch
said. “This is about community, and giving people enough information to
make a better decision.”
Mr. Gniwisch said the blogs attracted “thousands of visitors” a
week, but the effect on sales was unclear. “Technically, this is a very
soft sell,” he said. “We're intending to build awareness of our
product, so if sales come, great. If not, it's also good.”
Executives at Bluefly.com, the discount apparel e-tailer, credit their blog (Flypaper.bluefly.com)
with bringing in new customers. Flypaper, which was introduced in April
and features postings - sometimes more than one a day - on anything
fashion-related, “is bringing some very positive things,” said Melissa
Payner, the chief executive.
Among other things, Ms. Payner said, Flypaper visitors who click to Bluefly have been more likely to make a purchase than those who visit Bluefly directly.
Ms. Payner said Flypaper reflected the company's firmer resolve to
cater to women who cared about what was currently fashionable, instead
of selling discounted clothes that might or might not still be in
vogue. Ms. Payner, who spearheaded that shift when she took the chief
executive's job last year, sought to craft the blog in the image of the
company's merchants, whom she characterized as “obsessed with fashion.”
And so, in the course of a given day, Flypaper might feature
pictures of the singer Lauryn Hill's new hairdo, runway models in the
latest Milan show or full-length shots of random, fashionable
pedestrians, accompanied by snappy commentary. As with other e-commerce
blogs, Flypaper is written by employees in their free time - a task Ms.
Payner said her staff welcomed.
Blogging software, meanwhile, is available free, or, for more
sophisticated versions, at prices in the range of $15 monthly. Those
economics are attractive in an industry that is trying to curb
spending.
Among e-commerce companies that have spawned blogs, that of GoDaddy.com,
the Internet domain sales and hosting company, is perhaps the most
controversial. Written by the chief executive and owner of GoDaddy, Bob
Parsons, the blog attracts between 4,000 and 10,000 daily visitors, Mr.
Parsons said. A link to it is featured at the top of the GoDaddy.com
home page.
In the blog, Mr. Parsons muses on topics ranging from Guantanamo
Bay to the company's Super Bowl commercial. In his Guantanamo Bay
posting earlier this month, Mr. Parsons defended the government's
interrogation techniques - a position he adjusted after many reader
complaints.
“People said they'd never do business with me again, and tell their
friends, neighbors and pets to do the same,” Mr. Parsons said. “It also
worked in the opposite direction. But you know what? It defines my
company for people, so they can understand why we do things the way we
do them.”
He added, “I feel good that for a lot of people, when they're doing
business with me - it's not just some name with a URL on the Internet.”
