Mad Cat Toys Debuts With Unique Products and Site Content
Online retailer Mad Cat Toys (http://www.madcattoys.com) has launched its website with unique content and a product selection tailored to the evolving demographic of toy buyers. Founder and president of the Seattle-based company, Dale Carlson, developed the Mad Cat Toys concept based on the premise that new business models are available - and required - to succeed in toy retailing today.
(PRWEB) December 18, 2004 -- Mad Cat Toys has what it feels is a unique point of view on toy retailing. Founder and president of Mad Cat Toys, Dale Carlson believes that while the toy industry has faced enormous challenges in the past few years, the fact remains that there will always be a market for unique, high-quality toys. The task for retailers is to start thinking less in terms of mass markets and more in terms of a market of one," where audiences are segmented by lifestyles rather than age groups or product categories.
Serving individual interests with niche products requires a broader market base, and that is where online retailing can excel, says Carlson. But the challenge of virtual storefronts is the missing tangibility of products. People cant actually touch the products" Carlson continues, but we can bring them very close."
Part of the Mad Cat Toys (http://www.madcattoys.com) strategy is to deliver additional product depth with each click. This has been accomplished on the Mad Cat Toys website by way of high-quality photography, detail views and product specifications and descriptions with historical background. We want to make an emotional connection with customers, and with each click we strive to offer additional product content and get them a little closer to the product" Carlson said.
An example of this approach is the larger view" images available with each product. Though enlarged product views are offered on many retail sites, instead of offering a marginally larger version of an image the customer has already seen, the Mad Cat Toys site offers a much larger image with a different view angle. We want to offer customers the best possible opportunity to understand the product, and thats done with lots of incremental steps in delivering content and making the product a little more tactile - larger, more detailed images, expanded narrative and other content are all small steps toward conveying a better sense of product understanding. Delivering product understanding is a very different challenge than simply describing an item," Carlson explained.
Another example of the Mad Cat Toys approach to making products more tangible is the ScaleViewer (http://www.madcattoys.com/page/MCT/scaleviewer) application it has developed. The ScaleViewer is an interactive Flash-based tool that customers can use to compare the size of scale models to familiar-size objects. Users can select from drawings of cars, trucks, motorcycles and trains, set the scale ratio, and then compare them to known objects, such as a soda can or baseball, to get a sense of their actual size.
The problem in presenting scale models without context is that the customer may have only a vague notion of the size of the model based on its ratio, such as 1:18. We sometimes see products photographed with an object we know, like a deck of cards or coins, to give us a sense of size" Carlson explained. Thats the basic premise of the ScaleViewer, but it offers much more user control and content.
With the ScaleViewer the size of the model can be scaled to a pre-set ratio, or users can enter a ratio of their own. As the scale changes, the dimensions of the model and the actual vehicle are presented, and the user can drag a ruler around on the screen to take measurements from the model.
All these things help make the products a bit more tangible, more tactile, and that can lead to greater interest and comfort with an online purchase decision" Carlson continued.
Mad Cat Toys believes it is well positioned to meet evolving customer demographics, lifestyles and buying habits. Product quality and the emotional factor have always been a driving force in buying most anything, and its being lost in the commodity environment of mass-marketing. In the meantime, there is an expanding audience of customers with growing financial resources, product knowledge and quality expectations.
There is a world of fantastic toys that we cant enjoy simply because were not aware of them. Thats where Mad Cat Toys comes in - broad marketplace, niche products and tangible presentation," Carlson concluded.
About Mad Cat Toys
Mad Cat Toys is a Seattle-based online retailer of toys and gifts for children and collectors. Customers are attracted to Mad Cat Toys for its lifestyle-oriented selection, depth of product content, customer service and focus on hard-to-find toys for hard-to-please people."
Mad Cat Toys and ScaleViewer are trademarks of Mad Cat Toys Inc.
# # #
|
