For a project, I had to find some blogs in the retail space — those supporting stores, as opposed to supporting services.
I’d put blogs such as The Orthodontic Center and Andrew Ewalt’s Law Blog in the supporting services area.
I’d consider Signs Never Sleep, Lincoln Sign Co’s blog, in a middle area. The blog is certainly about a product — signs — but they’re made-to-order. I’d put English Cut in this space, too. Not sure what to call this area, though.
In the retail area, besides Aldo Coffee, and Heather at Eie Flud, who are some of the ground-breakers in this area, I found a few more.
And also,
I found eHobbies and Ice Blog through an article in DM News: Blogs and Bling Bling: Companies See More Sales, Improve Search Position
Here’s what they had to say about eHobbies:
Since adding blogging to its site in May, 5 percent of the company’s overall traffic comes from its main blog destination, www.ehobbies.blogs.com. In addition, 5 percent of all orders have recently tracked to a blog-based coupon.
The eHobbies blog looks good, but I’m not so sure the Ice blogs are “legit.” On the Sparkle like the Stars blog, the bloggers names are totally made up, and one is a blatant imitatation of Manolo, on the Shoe Blog. He may be fake, too, but at least he was first.
And, even though no connection to Ice, the jewerlry site, is mentioned on Ask Leslie blog, every answered question seems to end in a recommendation for a diamond pendant, earrings, or some other accessory from Ice.
Is it a black or gray kind of search engine optimization going on here? I can’t decide. But I do think it’s tacky.
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November 2nd, 2006 at 8:07 am
I rather liked the idea in Ask Leslie - to either have a real email question or I suppose fake one to then give the answer in terms of a product you want to push - although I would have to say my blog has never worked liked that - people seem to become like magazine readers and purchase what they want rather than me guiding them to what I want them to buy
Heather
November 2nd, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Funny thing about people, isn’t it? If they would only listen to us, they’d be much better off!
I just noticed that the Ask Leslie blog is powered by WordPress!
But I prefer the Tonic gift site, for some reason. I like the color better; Ask Leslie has a little too much white.
And the tips seems better integrated with the product placement. But as I explore Leslie, I do see more actual tips. It’s just that the product placement seems so relentless somehow.
On the other hand, the pictures are stunning, and make me want all the baubles they show.
April 21st, 2007 at 8:17 am
Thanks for the mention. Blogging as a retail site is becoming more and more common place and as things progress, then so is the blogging structure. We currently rate just outside the Top 100 in technorati on Australian sites so we are trying to work our way up the list.
April 21st, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Thanks for stopping by, Michelle. I just went back to revisit your site, and I think you folks really understand blogging. I particularly like the Bits of Beauty posts.