The birth of social media communities such as YouTube and other streaming video or media uploading sites has brought on a whole new way for Merchants and marketing professional to share tips, tricks and secrets with other users in an entertaining and informative way. Recently, I have been watching some eCommerce videos on a couple of different sites and I liked what I saw so much that I decided to write up a little blurb about each of them. This article is a little different than most on eCommerce Optimization in that it covers videos that actually teach you something and videos that are more for fun and entertainment than anything. I will comment on the learning videos first, then move along to the fun ones. Hope you like.

The first series of videos I watched is from a UK based marketing firm called GSINC. They have a new eCommerce video series appropriately named “eCommerce Rocks” that features 6 video tutorials on the most common mistakes made by eCommerce store owners and merchants.

I recommend watching all 6 Videos in order or use the link to watch the entire series in one video.

• Mistake 1 - Poor Design (1 of 6): Poor first impressions due to weak design
• Mistake 2 - Small Websites (2 of 6): Not having a unique page for each product you sell
• Mistake 3 - Not Talking (3 of 6): Assuming you don’t have to talk or sell to users
• Mistake 4 - Hiding Who You Are (4 of 6): Hiding physical company address and telephone number
• Mistake 5 - Your Benefits (5 of 6): The benefits of buying from your business
• Mistake 6 - Ignoring SEO Basics (6 of 6): Ignoring SEO basics can be a costly mistake

You can also view the whole 6 part series in one streaming video file by clicking here.

The second series of videos related to eCommerce if from an eCommerce Software Provider called Elastic Path. They have a contest happening on their Get Elastic blog right now to give away two US $100 Amazon gift certificates. There are two ways to qualify and win the gift certificates.

• Subscribe to their Get Elastic Feed and leave a comment (over 40 now) telling them you subscribed.
• If you own a blog you can link to The Crazy, Messed Up World Of eCommerce.

Elastic Path has created quite the linkbait in their new video series called “The Crazy, Messed Up World Of eCommerce” that features 4 entertaining videos on common online complaints, browser crashes, silly search results and irritating cross-selling. The catch is they bring these things into the world of traditional brick-and-mortar retail to see what would happen if offline shopping were as cruel and difficult as buying online.

Watch the entire series. I got a lot of enjoyment out of it and learned a few things too!

• Video 1 - If Only Search Engines Could Understand What We Want (1 of 7)
• Video 2 - Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought (2 of 7)
• Video 3 - Premature Redirection (3 of 7)
• Video 4 - Zero Results Found (4 of 7)
• Video 5 - Price Checked (5 of 7)
• Video 6 - Bananarama…rama…rama…rama (6 of 7)
• Video 7 - Abandoned (6 of 7)

You can also view the series at MetaCafe by clicking here.

Bravo to both companies for putting together some top notch videos that teach us a thing or two about eCommerce and entertain at the same time. I really hope you enjoyed the videos and urge you to leave feedback and comments below about what kinds of other eCommerce related videos you would like to see. I look forward to watching much more of these streaming videos in the near future and here at eCommerce Optimization we are even planning our own video tutorial series. It should be very special, nothing like you’ve seen before so check back or subscribe to our feed for updates.