Last post i raised the idea of retailers allowing more physical handling of their products, especially expensive ones, so customers will bond with it. Clearly, this is a more difficult proposition for online retailers ie impossible.

So what can online retailers do that is as good as physically touching their product? It will vary from product to product but following are some examples that i thought were good.

1. Cavalier Bremworth - These guys sell carpet and buying carpet is a big decision that lots of people delay. One way to help persuade people into buying their carpet was to enable them to get a feel for each type with good quality imagery. This enables customers to see the texture in detail and help them get a feel for it. Customers can start trying to visualise what it might look like in their homes and get wedded to the idea and order a sample straight away. This enables the customer to begin the journey to purchase while they are hot on it. As an aside, personas played a crucial part in guiding Cavalier Bremworth as to what types of experiences their website would need to provide for their primary audience. My colleague Sherryn will take you through personas in an upcoming post.

2. Jag Air – Adrenalin inducing flights are the experience these guys sell. Click the link and you are confronted with the noise of the plane you are likely to be in matched with video footage of being on a flight. Being able to see and hear what the Jag Air experience will be like gives the potential customer a good feel for what is on offer. If you are an adrenalin junkie this should get you going.

3. Scott mountain bikes - Go to this site and you will be confronted with a magnifying-glass type tool that enables you to easily look over the bike and see the design detail that the bike consists of. The technology and features leap out at you literally. You can almost physically feel the R&D that has gone into making it. A great tool.

4. A diamond is forever - This is an interesting site that enables you to design your own diamond ring. Choose the band, choose the metal type, choose the diamond, choose the cut and clarity etc. I’d imagine once a potential customer has gone through that process they’d start feeling wedded (no pun intended) to the ring.

This was just 4 examples to give you a taste of what some companies are doing out there.

The bottom line is that it is almost possible to make your customers feel your product as if they were there or had it in their hands.

If you know of any other great examples of online product experience where you can almost touch it feel free to comment.

A study has confirmed what you all may have suspected ie that customers are more likely to buy a product if they can touch it. Apparently, touching a product gives you an increased belief in your perceived ownership of that product. This makes sense when you think about it as it is basic human reaction. Even 5 year old kids do it – they touch something and then they think it is theirs.

Interestingly the study also went on to confirm that once a customer has touched the product they are more likely to pay more for it. Now this is something for every retailer to think about. Make your products touchable as much as you can. How many retailers can you think of where you can have a physical product experience? Apple is great. Body Shop is pretty good. Department stores are not so great – ever touched a TV in Farmers or Bond and Bond? What if you could? Would you feel that you had some perceived ownership of it?

What if Department stores spent less energy thinking about the customer journey through their store and concentrated more on enabling the customer to have a physical experience instead? This study would indicate better business success would result.

It seems to me that one of the main reasons we cannot touch a lot of product is that the store owners do not trust us to do so and thus those owners design their retail outlets for the untrustworthy. If they trusted us more maybe they would sell more because once we touch it we feel we own it so why would we damage it? Are the untrustworthy the majority? I wouldn’t have thought so. So retailers, let’s look at allowing more appropriate touching.

This touching thing is all well and good but it doesn’t help online retailers much – that’ll be my next post.