subject: So Who Will Create The Next Revolution? [print this page] Every once in a while a company who transforms an industry appears in front of our eyes. Barnes and Nobles who pioneered the concept of a book superstore with a massive selection of books, comfortable ambiance, and (who can forget) a nice coffee shop in every store revolutionized the book retailing industry. Then there was Zappos with their customer focus approach that revolutionized the online market for shoes.
Our question is who will be next. Who is the next company who is going to take a hum dram market and transform it?
In our quest we first looked at what industry or market is ready for this transformation. We found the online wall art market. A non-traditional ecommerce market. In many cases shoppers are not even considering to go online in order to find the next work of art to beautify their home or office.
We then conducted a vast customer survey among retailers of that market and found a small yet extremely successful online art gallery named - overstockArt.com. While currently a small pure play e-commerce retailer, overstockArt.com seems to take a page out of Tony Hsieh's (CEO of Zappos) book. However, they are telling a different story.
We found several attributes with this online retailer that we did not find in any other in its class:
First and foremost, this company focuses intensely at delivering value to its customers. overstockArt.com is focusing on selling the highest quality hand painted art at very reasonable prices. Moreover, from our research we found overstockArt.com to be the only company online who certifies that there art is truly hand painted.
Second, like Zappos who awakened and effectively created a 30 billion dollar market for shoes online, overstockArt.com is focusing on the customer. Both companies have a customer intimacy business strategy. The customer focus is apparent in everything that they do from gallery design to framing features which allows the customer to comfortably brows and select ready to hang art.
Finally and specifically, overstockArt is a customer oriented company, and the first (currently the only) wall dcor company incorporating free shipping both ways. They make it easy for the customers not only to buy their hand painted art, but also to return at no charge if they are not entirely pleased. This is obviously a company who understand and respects the needs of its customers.
No one has 20/20 vision into the future, but it will be interesting to see what will happen in the next few years with the wall dcor industry. How much impact will the likes of overstockArt.com have on our decorating future?
