Kelly Mooney's blog about the online shopping experience from the customer's point of view -- MooneyThinks.com

Off for the holiday!

Relatives are arriving early at my home this holiday so I'm off to finish shopping, wrapping, and cooking (well, not much cooking, just baking!). Back at it in the new year. In the meantime, don't forget to Guess the Gift!

Yankee Candle Turns Off Its Online Christmas Lights Early

As the "last-chance-to-get-it-under-the-tree" emails hit my in-box, our e-retail analysts are hunkering down, sifting through their holiday shopping experiences and getting ready to write them up in our 11th annual Holiday E-commerce Watch. (If you want to make sure you get a copy, let me know!)

Our team is focusing on e-retail innovations and trends, and e-commerce experiences that are O.P.E.N. The focus is clearly forward, upward, and into the future--not who did what wrong, a tally we had to keep in the early days of e-commerce.

So I was shocked to see this holiday shut-down from Yankee Candle. With a large homepage caution message that brought me back to 2000, Yankee Candle announced December 3 on its web site that "due to the current volume of orders" it couldn't guarantee orders for Christmas delivery.

Unanticipated demand? Poor Planning? But to their credit, Yankee Candle makes it very clear on the homepage that you can't get orders shipped for Christmas, and it uses the rest of the real estate to re-direct consumers to alternatives--online gift cards or the retail stores. Good for them for being transparent and doing what they can to minimize customer disappointment.

Guess our Gift!

Tired of guessing what to give everyone for the holidays? Stop worrying about how you're going to put a smile on the face of your dad who needs nothing or your friend who wants everything or all the other impossible-to-buy-for people on your list. Steal a moment to see what we decided to give for the holidays this year.

We've got a bit of a guessing game for you, but the beauty is it's the guess that counts. The mere act of guessing (and asking your friends to guess) makes our gift even better. I think you'll find it engaging and I certainly hope you'll see that its networked characteristics amplify the experience--and our gift!

So in the spirit of the holidays (whether yours has just ended or is quickly on its way), give yourself the gift of a 2-minute break and go Guess the Gift. Then you can get back to worrying whether your brother-in-law will like the Moccasin slippers you found on sale.

Apple Speeds Up Search

I never thought the act of completing a word and clicking the "search" button on a site's search bar was really all that arduous or time-consuming. But I also never thought going to the movie rental store was a chore (now it is!). Or buying CDs at the store (ditto). Netflix and iTunes have not only made those processes significantly more streamlined - on-demand  -  they've changed (and increased) the way I consume these products and experience their brands.

So I was surprised and delighted when I started typing a word into the search box on Apple's site. Before I finished the word (it was "radio"), a small window popped up under the box with a categorized list of results--text and images. I could immediately see what results came in for the online store, retail stores, products, movie trailers, downloads...Apple is not a case study for an OPEN BRAND, rather, the antithesis in many regards. But this is a small step in the right direction.

I don't know how new the functionality is, but I haven't seen this kind of innovation around the search bar (on a destination site, versus a search engine) in a long time. The innovation on its own is promising, and hopefully, pretty soon I'll wonder how I ever lived without it.

Protecting the Polar Bear - Join Us!

In our part of the country, it's brisk, chilly. Even had our first snow last week. Might make you think about polar bears. Okay, maybe not. ; ) But the folks at The Coca-Cola Company are doing just that. For years, they have leveraged the adorable, majestic king of the Great White North, the polar bear, in its holiday marketing. It's been a warm-and-fuzzy winter-time theme, but unfortunately, the polar bear has also become a global symbol for climate change. So in addition to Coca-Cola's existing corporate responsibility initiatives, the company created The Coca-Cola Company Polar Bear Support Fund.

We at Resource were thrilled to help bring the initiative online in an elegant little microsite that launched this past weekend. Simple, real and engaging, the microsite offers a brief overview about polar bears, the arctic, and what you can do to help.

When you get a chance, visit the site (make sure to turn on your sound) and learn about the threats to polar bears, where they live and what you can do to reduce your human impact on global climate change (learning about the cause, of course, is one way to help). Plus you can send holiday e-cards to your loved ones and support the cause financially, not to mention save a tree and the fossil fuel needed to get your paper card from here to there.

FreeRice Proves to be Sticky

Ever find a bowl of M&Ms to be addictive? How about a bowl of peanuts? A bowl of chips? Right now I'm addicted to a bowl of rice. Well, bowls of rice, actually. FreeRice.

If FreeRice.com hasn't made its way through your office or your chain of email-forwarding friends, you can be the one to start it. It's deliciously simple, fun, rewarding and, unfortunately for some, addictive (but don't worry, these carbs won't hit your waistline!).

In short, it's a charitable vocabulary test. For every word you define correctly (don't worry, it's multiple choice), FreeRice donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. Now if you're having SAT flashbacks, don't panic, the test modulates to where you are. It makes the game more relevant. And at the bottom you'll see the Vocabulary Level, a score that is tempting to flaunt with or hide from your friends.

A lot of the beauty is in the simplicity of the experience. All you have to do is answer questions. The details, like where the rice goes, are easily accessible, but don't stand in the way of you bettering your vocabulary.

I also love the instant gratification. In a matter of seconds you can donate a few grains of rice. Doesn't seem like a lot? To give you a sense for how addictive the experience is, the bottom of the page displays how many grains of rice were donated the previous day. Yesterday they donated 285, 534,420 grains.

Best Buy Rewards Shoppers with Options

Since "door-busting" deals and the accompanying points or "rewards" are de rigueur for holiday shopping, it's nice to see retailers infusing some creativity and consumer control into their programs.

A fellow Resourcian who is a consumer-electronics fan(atic) forwarded on this example from Best Buy. In addition to the dollars-for-points formula common with many retailers, specifically those in the Gap family, Best Buy's Reward Zone members were offered one of five Special Holiday Rewards.

For starters, I like seeing how they're upping the stakes at holiday time.

Three of the holiday rewards involve getting more points or dollars based on when and what you buy. The fourth is a 6-month trial subscription to Geek Squad, which helps shoppers enjoy their Best Buy products. The fifth is the one that really caught my (and my gadget-loving colleague's) attention.

Called "Presents of Mind," this reward option lets you donate the value of your points to Toys for Teens, a program that hopes to "change a mind, a holiday, and an outlook" for teens in need.

'Tis the season for giving of all types, of course, but it is nice to see Best Buy has found more ways to reward shopper loyalty and more options so shoppers may choose the one most relevant to them. For me however, it is still a struggle to figure out what electronics best fit our needs and our lifestyle..advice I can't seem to get from the site or from the blue shirts.. My go-to gadget guru happens to work at our company and he is so motivated by the Best Buy points, that he actually bought the TV (among other items) that he recommended to me and my husband (based on knowing our space, our tastes, our viewing preferences, the electronics we already own, etc). This way he accumulated the points he coveted and I simply paid him back. That's the best service I could hope for.