Endless & Forever
As the world’s top online retailer, Amazon.com has done pretty well building a one-stop shopping destination, even aggregating other sellers’ merchandise into one huge product database. But the e-commerce giant took a step toward another possible marketing strategy this week with the launch of Endless.com, a website that specializes only in handbags and shoes (many of which are also carried on the main Amazon.com website.) Endless.com provides an enhanced shopping experience for shoe and handbag shoppers, with a very innovative shopping cart, large up-close product views (including every angle including the sole!), and awesomely smooth magnification of every product image. These bells and whistles are combined with the ease and comfort of a standard Amazon.com shopping cart. Frankly, it’s very cool. As any woman will tell you, shopping for shoes and handbags must be a pleasure to be savored, not a chore to be sped through, and this site lives up to the challenge. Of course, my first immediate thought is that this is exactly what Amazon needs to do to create a more luxurious jewelry shopping experience, particularly if they want to engage the female self purchaser. Although Amazon.com’s top holiday jewelry are basics purchased by men, the site does carry a lot of surprisingly beautiful jewelry (including a great selection from trendsetting online store Ylang23. In fact, since I am telling this large corporation what to do now, they should buy Ylang23. Immediately, before Blue Nile does.) Sites like Endless.com, with more emphasis on the shopping experience, are a sign of things to come as women are now the biggest shoppers online (although it sometimes seems they are all selling to each other on eBay.) The most successful jewelry e-commerce sites, like most successful jewelry retail stores, got that way by selling diamonds to men. Perhaps the web (and the real world) can build another model for success?