Camper shoes. Great shoes. Anyone who’s somewhat savvy on the footwear side knows that Camper has that cool “now”-thing going for them. If there’s anything called “Designer shoes” that’s them.

So it’s all the more mystery why they insist of having what may be the worst web presence seen of late. Granted, there’s nearly nothing harder than coming up with a sleek and cool website for clothes or clothe like products, while being informative. But theirs is so far off the chart I think a regular list with photos of the shoes to the left and price + combo boxes with size and a description to the right would have it beat hands down.

I think parts of the reason why amazon.com has stayed in business over web for as long as they have, is due to the fact that they haven’t yet gone overboard on “let’s create an app-like web for our products”. That approach doesn’t work yet, in part because the net isn’t robust to send home 1 meg per product yet and in the case of shoes or books you want to browse, and you don’t want to be sitting with a “loading…” sign in your face, then you go elsewhere.

Everything has a format it’s best suited for, and for retail on the web, that is lists, categorized, tagged, cross-product, “other ppl who bought this”, along with great pictures in reasonable size. Resist the temptation of 360 views, user interaction with an animated version of the product, and “the story of the product - in pictures”. We’re just not there yet.

Still, I recommend you visit your well sorted shoe store in actual reality and get yourself suited in a couple of Campers for the summer. You won’t regret that buy.

I stumbled across Seth Godin’s blog on the net and from there to his speech from 2003(!) which I almost dissed without bothering to watch it since it’s more than 20 web years since it was made. Classic mistake.

Watching it, it starts out like a regular “Now I’m gonna tell you all you’ve learned so far in life is wrong”-speeches that comes in 13 on the dozen at these type of conferences. But it didn’t take that path. I was very amused and amazed and above all reminded of some of the truths that I subscribe to. Also, he’s a good speaker.

If I ever get to the place where I’m looking for a marketer that talks and walks like me, I’ll be sure to use Seth Godin. There Seth, is the buzz about you spread by me, thus proving your point in the presentation!