How ice.com Sells Jewelry Online: Tips to Build Consumer Trust on the Web

In its early days, ice.com was at the center of the late nineties
online start-up boom, even spending time as part of the IdeaLab!
family.

But unlike so many of its contemporaries, ice.com didn't melt in the
post-boom return to reality. Instead, it's become one of the leading
online jewelry retailers, with strong growth and profits.

How?

COO Moshe Krasnanski won't spend money on any marketing and
acquisition unless the results are measurable, and acquisition costs
can be recouped with the first sale.

Krasnanski says, "We will never lose money on the first sale hoping
that we'll make money on the second sale."

So where does that leave branding, an important issue for a company
with ice.com's size and presence?

Krasnanski accepts there are branding elements to some of the
advertising the company does, but the decision to buy that
advertising is based entirely on the likely sales generated - any
branding value is a bonus.

"If we'll be somewhere in a great spot but we can't measure in any
way sales or we know we won't get any sales but it'll be great brand
building, we won't do it."

This leaves ice.com's marketing to focus on two areas. First,
measurable tactics that drive a direct sales response. Second, the
website customer experience, both to drive conversions AND to build
sales, awareness and - yes - the ice.com brand through the word of
mouth generated by happy customers.

Ice.com doesn't really do any offline marketing..."You'll find us
only online...so we're there when you're able to press the button
and make a purchase." Their online ads are aimed at appearing, "in
the places where people buy." Two key examples...

-- Search engines (through traditional SEO and PPC)

There's a full-time marketer managing the PPC marketing, tracking
each keyword/SE combination and measuring its conversion rate, cost
per click, and ROI, and then adjusting bids accordingly.

Krasnanski stresses that this monitoring process must be continuous
as the performances of each keyword/location combination change
through the year.

-- Portals

As you'd expect, ice.com is present in the jewelry and watch
shopping pages of major portals, but also sometimes pays for
placement on the front pages. How does this square with the no-
branding direct response philosophy?

In such circumstances, they'll advertise an item retailing at
between $50 and $95, and offer a one-day-only special price,
exclusive to that portal site. The aim is to encourage an impulse
buy, something rare in the jewelry world.

Krasnanski says a really hot offer pulls in a lot of lookers, and
despite conversion rates which may be less than half the usual, the
resultant total sales still justify the cost of the promotion.

Next, ice.com's website works hard to drive visitor-to-buyer
conversions.

One tactics that helps is the site's financing program which allows
customers to pay over a series of three to five payments (the first
payment goes with the initial order), without incurring any interest
or other charges.

According to Krasnanski, it gives, "the customer the ability to buy
a piece of jewelry which they could afford if they pay over a few
months but can't afford to pay in one shot. And customers love it.
People use it and we get tremendous feedback about it."

However, the biggest challenge faced by online jewelers is namely
the inherent non-branded nature of jewelry.

Krasnanski explains, "If someone sees an earring on our site and
somewhere else, the question they ask themselves is...are they going
to be the same or not, meaning are these guys for real? A lot more
questions that you don't have elsewhere because there's just no
branding."

Which is why so much of ice.com's website is dedicated to building
trust, for example...

-- certification and security links

The site provides easily accessible links to, among others...

* information on the certificate of authenticity that comes with
each piece of jewelry

* BizRate.com's certification for ice.com, which includes ratings or
reviews from over 25,000 customers

* The BBBOnLine Reliability seal and Better Business Bureau
information

* Info on the Jewelers Vigilance Committee (ice.com is a member)

-- security reassurances

Each product page bears the message, "Shopping with ICE is safe -
Guaranteed" with a link to information about transaction security.
If you call ice.com on the phone, you hear similar reassurances in
the telephone hold messages.

-- extensive product-related information

Krasnanski says, "We try to give the customer as much information as
they need to be able to make the purchase, to understand the
product, to understand our processes, and to understand when they
should expect the product." Which means large product images,
detailed technical specifications and similar.

-- company information and disclosure

Contact links and the company telephone number appear prominently
throughout the site. "We don't hide our phone number, we don't hide
our address."

There's also plenty of background on the company itself, and - just
as important from a trust perspective - the senior employees,
including their personal email addresses (which work - we tried).
"We try to look like the corner store jeweler, where you feel
comfortable, trust us, see that we've been around."
http://www.ice.com