Yesterday, Amazon announced the launch of “Customer Video Reviews,” a service that allows customers to share what they think about a product and demonstrate a product in action, which can be instrumental in getting getting others to buy. The videos are grouped with the conventional reviews on a product’s page, making it easy for potential customers to view the videos.

“We are dedicated to offering our customers an information-rich shopping experience so they can know which products are right for them,” notes Colin Bodell, the vice president of Amazon.com. “The chance to see product demonstrations as submitted by fellow customers is just the latest benefit to shopping on Amazon.”

After watching a few video reviews for products as divergent as the Wenzel Queen Airbed and the Darth Vader Voice Changer, I’m instantly addicted. These videos give customers an insight into a product’s value that conventional reviews just can’t, and seeing a product in action can awaken an intense urge to buy, even in a jaded eCommerce blogger like myself.

Some of these are far too long, but I guess that should be expected. I didn’t make it through a review for Playstation 3 that was over 9 minutes long, and the portion I did watch didn’t impart any value. Video reviews should demonstrate why you should or shouldn’t buy a product, not outline mundane details that could and should be found in a product description. A video review shouldn’t simply state if a product has Wi-fi, but whether the Wi-fi works well in a coffee shop/airport/home. That’s the strength of the video review… showing potential customers what a conventional review can’t, and doing it in a way that holds their attention just long enough to impart value.

To test the service (and to try and take my own advice) I did a video review this morning for the headset I use to record the Magento screencasts, the Sennheiser Gaming Headset. We’ll post a follow-up link to it in tomorrow or Monday’s post (since video reviews typically take 48 hours to appear on the site… a tactic to prevent inappropriate video, I’m guessing). Overall, the upload process was incredibly easy. Amazon allows you to upload your video file in .WMV, .MPEG, QuickTime or .AVI formats, and the browse/upload tool works in a way that’s basically identical to YouTube’s. Amazon has even struck an agreement with the Flip Video camcorder that can automatically upload a review from the camera to Amazon.

I can imagine that this feature will be incredibly popular on Amazon. As more and more retailers see the value in video reviews, I have a feeling that we’ll start to see that this is the direction that reviews in general are heading. According to research conducted by the E-Tailing Group, embedded video reviews are among the top content features that influence a customer’s decision to convert. Maybe we should all start investing in the Amazon-sponsored Flip Video, because I bet we’ll be seeing and making a lot more of these video reviews.

You know the holidays are coming when shopping engines across the web unveil a seasonal increase in their cost per click (CPC) rates, and sites like ComparisonEngines.com argue on the behalf of merchants that not every category should be hit with the same seasonal increase. Countering increased rates on Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing, the shopping engines argue that they’re just trying to cover their costs, and that conversion rates increase during the holidays. Merchants shouldn’t mind, right?

Not everyone, however, experiences this windfall… making the flat, 25% increases on NexTag, Shopzilla, and PriceGrabber seem like nothing more than a way to exploit eCommerce retailers desperate for holiday conversions. It seems to me that instead of coming off as a seasonal inconvenience, it appears to merchants that shopping engines are trying to take advantage of them. As Brian argues,

I’m not so sure that this Forklift seller is going to see a huge spike in conversion. Or that people will be adding projection mounts to their holiday wish lists. NexTag, Shopzilla, and PriceGrabber are saying that CPC rates increase for them during the holiday shopping season. Again, I don’t think that argument holds for across all product categories. Do bids for textbooks on Adwords or YSM really increase 25%?

Shopping.com, on the other hand, has decided this holiday season to use a variable rate increase from 10%-25% depending on the product. Office equipment and cars, for example, are not usually categories where merchants are wrestling for prominence during the holiday - thus, they’re only seeing a 10% increase. Flowers and items for children, on the other hand, are seeing the conventional 25% as more merchants compete for the clicks.

Shopping.com has admitted that not all categories see cost increases during the holiday season… so why do the other prominent shopping engines insist on these flat increases in CPC rates? It’s an unfair practice, and it shouldn’t continue for this, or any holiday season. Check out all of Shopping.com’s holiday rates and a more in-depth analysis here, and let us know what you think about this flat rate vs. variable rate debate in the comments.

We’ve discussed the importance of regularly testing your eCommerce site for bugs and poor performance which could affect your customers’ satisfaction in the past . But what about testing it to prevent theft? Recently, the Consumerist reported that a woman in North Carolina exploited a glitch in QVC’s online store that enabled her to steal $412,000 worth of merchandise from the retailer. The problem? If a customer canceled an order immediately after placing it, they would receive the items anyway, free of charge. This was likely a disconnect in the system they had set up, where orders would immediately go to fulfillment, but cancellations would not.

This is obviously a pretty significant glitch… but it was never caught by QVC. It was only after two women grew suspicious of the thief’s eBay auctions that the glitch was found and fixed. This is a cautionary tale for eCommerce retailers - regularly go though the motions in your own store to make sure that it’s operating at peak efficiency and that all of the divisions in your eCommerce operation are communicating with one another. The time you spend doing this is always worthwhile… remember, you could be saving yourself a lot of time and grief in the long run.

This advertisement for soon-to-launch online retailer Hema is one of the most innovative, entertaining and fun marketing efforts I’ve seen in quite awhile. The whole page, recreating an eCommerce site (with a chaotic twist), is the perfect combination of humor, defying visitor expectations, and most of all, getting potential customers excited about the new store. Viewers can even send the page to a friend using a tool that at the end of the advertisement, helping to spread the word about the site’s impending launch, and surrounding it with buzz.

The promotion makes me look forward to seeing the final site… what about you? Do you think this is an effective way to market a site? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.