Free e-commerce search report 11 Aug 2005

15 comments Latest by Helen, ecommerce expert

37signals search report

In 2003 we published our 25 site, 45 page e-commerce search report for $79. Seeing that it’s been a few years now, you can now download the report for free (1.2 MB PDF). Whether or not the information is still relevant is for you to decide, but we hope you can find some value in the report.

15 comments so far (Jump to latest)

Dan Boland 11 Aug 05

Looks like some pretty thorough research. Nice job.

Jeff Koke 11 Aug 05

Jason,
Great report. I’m curious to know whether any of these sites implemented any of the changes you suggested (I know you didn’t do the report at their request, but I wonder if it got back to someone there).

Jeff

B. Adam 11 Aug 05

Jason: If you don’t mind me asking — how did this report sell? I’m sure lots of readers would be interested in whether creating their own, similar report/whitepaper would be worthwhile.

JF 11 Aug 05

We sold a few hundred copies.

Scott Meinzer 11 Aug 05

After checking with the Apple Store they seam to have made some improvements:

� A search for “Epsan” will now give you Epson products.
� You can now filter and sort your results.
� You also now get a more verbose message when you find nothing; as well as links to common searches.
� A search for “$100 Printer” seams to have no effect and list printers as normal.

So it seams at least someone made some improvements. I would as well if I was at the bottom of the list…

Tony 11 Aug 05

JF,
Was it worth it? Do you feel like you recouped much of your investment?

JF 11 Aug 05

Financially, no it wasn’t worth it, but we’re still glad we did it. We learned a lot about what it takes to put a document like this together (hint: it’s a TON of work). But it was still enjoyable.

Dan Hartung 11 Aug 05

Did it get you any business (that you know of)?

Niklas 12 Aug 05

Wow, this report is just _beautiful_. The content is of almost no relevance to me professionally, but just looking at the page above makes me want to read it. The underlying data is of course critical, but making (and helping) people want to digest it is something else. Really, wow.

emm ess eff 12 Aug 05


A useful and instructive example of practicing what you preach. Maybe there hasn’t been a *direct* return on investment for producing the report….

Coincidentally I had an old Alertbox open when this was posted which features a relevant cartoon

Stephen 12 Aug 05

What font are you guys using and which foundry did you get it from?

No Conscience 13 Aug 05

Stephen - The font is Interstate from Font Bureau. Buy it and you too can pretend you work for 37signals!

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/fontbureau/interstate/

Jens Meiert 13 Aug 05

Looks good and still useful. Thanks for sharing.

nq 24 Aug 05

Thanks for sharing.

Helen, ecommerce expert 24 Nov 05

It still belongs to today situation though needs to be uptodated.