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The current online video landscape has gone from nothing to super competitive in a very very short time. The list of online sites and companies that have something to do with video is getting a bit rediculous. One of these reasons we've been pushing really hard at vzaar to get our beta live, as we know the competition is tough and we want to be leading it in a short while.

Selling on eBay has also got rather competitive in the last 5 years, going from a small (well smaller than it is today) marketplace to a viable business for tens of thousands of people.

So what do you do when you're in a competitive business market? You look to stand out from the crowd, and look at what other people are doing and you learn from them.

We're helping eBay sellers stand out from the crowd, with video really having the ability to enhance an listing, and change the way people buy on eBay. And anything that helps your buyers helps you.

For us, as vzaar we also want to stand out. We want to make sure that we're better at helping people put video on eBay than anyone else, as well as well as make sure the experience we give our users is top notch. Using the flower deliver service of a friend of ours this week reminded me how improtant to understand and meet the needs of our users (that's you).

Selling flowers online is a competitive business. A cut throat stem business you might say (we're not afraid of bad puns here at vzaar towers). Recently I had a blind date and so decided (with the help of gentle hint by the mutual friend setting us up) to take a flower. So I hopped online to Arena Flowers to see what I could find.

I scrolled down to the romantic flowers section but they didn't have quite what I was looking for (you can't take a big bunch of flowers on a blind date when you are going to see a show). So I popped across to Arena's contact page to drop them an email. And I was pleasantly surprised at the great work Will had done here. Well not all that surprised because Will is a smart guy, but given how bad the state of things can be on the web, good work always stands out.

Not only can you contact Arena but a variety of methods (just about everything but carrier pigeon) but you get the felling the actually care about their customers (a lessons some of the bigger guys could learn). Clicking on email gave me a choice of three addresses. However rather than confusing customers trying to figure out who to speak to (is it sales or presales I want? Is is technical or support?). Arena makes this easy and obvious. Normally I wouldn't have known if I want to contact customer services or the florists to ask about suggestions, but each email address has a little explanation. Now I know I contact customer services to ask for advice about what to get, the florists to ask about advice as to how to get the flowers to live longer and feedback to let them know that I think they should add a blind date section to their occasions list.

I emailed customer services and got some great advice, from an incredibly helpful Jackie (not only customer services, but Will's mom too). Several emails back and fourth, we had ruled out roses (too cliched), normal lilies (smells of death according to one friend) and gerberas (absolutely beautiful but not even zazz). Then Jackie suggested cala lillies and assured me they weren't the same as normal lilies, and even went to the effort of taking some pictures of some to send to me.

The flowers arrived in perfect time a few hours before my date. Exquisitely prepared with a bit of water in the bottom to keep them alive through the date, and a text to let me know they had arrived (in case they hadn't and then I could fix the problem)

So what did I learn from Arena that I want to carry through to vzaar?

It's all about your customers.

Arena helped me figure out who to speak to. They had someone to speak to. They understood my problem. They sorted it out. At every step of the way they were focused on me and making my experience a better one.

They knew it wasn't about making money of a bunch of flowers. Anyone can do that. What it was about was making sure I had a good date. Now instead of selling me one bunch of flowers, they'll probably have my custom for a long time. They need to be successful as a business, but they know that's not about selling flowers. It's about making sure that the when people buy flowers from them, they really do have a good experience, and the flowers are something that makes a difference.

And the date loved the flowers.

Disclaimer: Will who runs Arena, is a friend and colleague of ours from our days at eBay. Arena also is now selling flowers on eBay and using vzaar videos to enhance their listings

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