Tuesday, December 06, 2005

fields.com lives on... but not for too long

It is funny how some major retailers can't find it in the budget or time to strategically update technology or user experience on their sites... while others are busy doing it eventhough they have an END DATE!!

It seems that the folks running Fields.com (the Online Site for the doomed but adored Marshall Fields) have made some user-centered changes to help sales in this, their scheduled last online holiday season. With the Federated purchase of May Department Stores, Federated announced that they will convert all Marshall Fields stores to Macy's by September 2006. The internet retailer article details a few of the changes they've made for the holiday season.

A quick check of the site reveals new rich media features in their online circulars/tabs powered by the folks over at Scene 7. All of their changes didn't cost a lot though... a simple "shop by price" page for gifts makes it simple to do your gift shopping by that all important price point. I argue that many of the gifts that you buy at the holidays are gifts you have to buy... gifts for the office, for that 3rd cousin you see twice a year. If we as retailers are supposed to be making it easy for our consumers to shop... then solving little problems like the "gotta buy a gift" problem are big "little wins" that will generate loyal customers. Too bad these loyal Fields customers will be either relocating or buying from macys/bloomingdales/lord & taylor this time next year.

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