Putting emotion into e-commerce

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E-commerce site Mas Oportunidades (MasOportunidades.com) held a meagre 10% share of the Argentinian e-commerce market. Previous advertising campaigns had done little to boost this or dent the dominant online retailer, Mercado Libre eBay’s market share. Mas Oportunidades needed a new hook.
 
Instead of taking on Mercado Libre at its own game, Mas Oportunididas decided to change the rules of the game. Realising that the larger a corporation is, the more faceless it becomes, Mas Oportunidades decided to put emotion back into e-commerce by incorporating an innovative twist to its on-site selling.
 

People often write a story as to why they are selling their wares on e-commerce sites. It could be an unwanted gift, or it could be something they’ve inherited, or something they’ve grown out of. Mas Oportunidades decided to group items with similar stories together into categories. So in addition to the usual product categories, users could also browse items in what the brand called e-motional categories such as ‘my body changed’; ‘my girlfriend drew the line on me’, and ‘I never knew how to use it’. Users were also actively encouraged to attach the story behind the sale of each listed item. Having changed the structure of the site, the rest of the communications hung off this idea. So TV, print and outdoor all highlighted a story of someone selling an item.

Since launching the campaign Mas Oportunidades has quadrupled its number of users from 500,000 to 2 million. 1,200 stories have been posted on-line changing the site’s focus from a place where people only go to sell, to a place where people have fun, then buy or sell later.

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