I hesitate to say that I am an avid backpacker, but I have put in my share of trail miles. I have completed a good portion of the lower Appalachian Trail and am looking forward to completing another 25 mile section with my son in a few weeks (he graduates from college May 7th). Needless to say, I’m no stranger to REI. In fact, I actually own an REI pack; the earlier Flash 60 model. I’m also a bit of a technophile, so the things I notice about the REI website tend to be related to the sites’ performance and ease of use. That may have little or nothing to do with marketing, but if I have to watch a spinning hourglass while an online retailer’s site loads, it sends up huge red flags and I become very uncomfortable entering my credit card information. I will usually immediately head for the nearest virtual competitor. In that respect, REI’s e-commerce site is exceptional. The site loads very quickly and it is very easy to navigate. However, once you leave the visually appealing homepage, even the REI marketing department probably loathes the site – it is very utilitarian; consisting of merely a header and footer, the search filter on the left and the product return on the right; nothing fancy. There are a number of very interesting metrics that web masters use to track “click through conversions”, and I’m sure the marketing department at REI is fully aware of these statistics – how long you spend on their site before you either buy what you were looking for or head for the competitor’s site – either in frustration or to simply compare prices. I selected the “Camping & Hiking” section. Again, once you are deep into the inventory of the site, the marketing appears to rely on the volume of inventory because the aesthetics are very utilitarian. In fact, there is only a single ‘lifestyle’ image in this section. However, the ancillary services that set REI apart from the competition are prominently displayed: Expert Advice, Classes, and REI Adventure Trips. Click on this area and you are taken to a very visually appealing site that has clearly been given the marketing stamp of approval. I suspect that some trade-offs or sacrifices were made in style and aesthetics to insure that the search results loaded quickly and the conversion rates remained high. Once customers click on an area of the site labeled “learn more” or “explore more”, the retailer assumes you are not quite ready to buy, and invests more to convince you buy. That is likely why these areas of the REI site are considerably more polished. Compared to the Bass Pro Shops site, I can find very similar strategies employed. Even brick and mortar companies like REI and Bass Pro Shops have come to rely on the additional revenue that is generated by a well-designed e-commerce site, so successful web marketing strategies are often replicated. The only thing I would do differently would be to add a “wish list” function. A wish list is similar to simply adding items to the shopping cart without actually purchasing them. The next time you visit the site, your wish list items are saved for you. This also gives the retailer great insight into what you are considering buying, but haven’t committed to yet. It can help them understand where they are having trouble converting interest into sales.

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REI website has several things that it deals in namely marketing and ecommerce among oth... View the full answer