Shutterfly.com versus Snapfish.com – The Race For Holiday Shoppers Heats Up
Written by Cynthia Stephens (contact - e-mail) -- December 10th, 2008 | Share - Save - E-mailI recently created my first photo book online as a holiday gift. Judging by the slow speed of the site I was on, I wasn’t alone! In fact, traffic to photo service sites Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly, Snapfish and MyPublisher each rose in November. Snapfish experienced the biggest gain with a whopping 40% increase to a record 4.725 million people. And, only Snapfish enjoyed a year-over-year increase in traffic (up 25.7% from last November).
What made Snapfish so popular, particularly against its close rival Shutterfly? A quick look at the top referring sites to Shutterfly and Snapfish provided a big hint.
- Nearly 4% of all traffic referred to Snapfish.com in November came from Oprah.com, a 29,475 percent increase in referral share from the prior month.
- A quick check revealed that Oprah announced a credit for her viewers to receive a free 20 page 8×11 custom photo book through Snapfish.com during November (using an online coupon)
- In all, Snapfish.com had the advantage compared with Shutterfly.com in 9 of the top 15 referring sites
So, what’s next for these rivals in competing for consumers’ attention this holiday season? Consider this:
Snapfish: Focus on retention and greater share of wallet. The Oprah promotion clearly drove viewers to Snapfish. The question now is, will they return to make other paid purchases? And, can Snapfish convert these Oprah viewers into loyal customers? Watch to see if November’s surge in traffic is a one-time windfall or is sustained. If the site’s Daily Reach is a harbinger, it may signal that the hard work is just beginning.
Shutterfly: Evaluate your paid search program. Shutterfly received an average 32% of its search engine referrals from paid ads compared with Snapfish’s 25%. On the one hand, Shutterfly has 9% more overall search referrals than its rival to show for its spending. And non-branded search terms “photo book” and “photo cards” are among the top 10 keywords driving traffic to Shutterfly. But overall traffic still lags Snapfish. And, what do these searchers do when they get to the site? How does this compare with what happens at Snapfish? Are searchers more or less likely to purchase online compared to rivals? Benchmarking against competitors could provide valuable competitive information.
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December 10th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Next time, please include http://www.blurb.com in your analysis. Thanks!
December 14th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Don’t think the Oprah bump will be permanent. For that to happen, Snapfish would likely need a couple more bumps like this one. If the Oprah gang gets hit with the same thing 2 or 3 times, you can be sure they’ll get addicted.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Last year I used snapfish and it was wonderful. My holiday pictures were shipped within 24 hours of placing my order and delivered when promised. I ordered my pictures from shutterfly 10 days ago have not received them and cannot even track them using my order number. I will never use shutterfly again.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I used the discount that I saw on Oprah. I had received prints in July already from Snapfish and was pleased, but I was not impressed with the photo book. I ordered it on Nov. 13 with the hopes that I would receive it in enough time to order others for Christmas presents. The website said that my estimated shipping date was Nov. 25. It did not ship on that date, but when I checked it moved my shipping date to Nov. 20. Clearly that wasn’t happening. I was finally able to track down a phone number after emailing 5 times. I did not receive the photo book until Dec. 21. The book was not very impressive either and definitly not worth the actual price of the book. I also ordered prints to be picked up at Walgreen’s and they were the worst pictures I have ever seen. I am now not really sure whether I will ever use an online photo store again.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
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April 14th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
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April 20th, 2009 at 5:39 am
I think the key point to understand is loyalty – are they retaining their customers. If so, an “Oprah Spike” is great and it does seem that snapfish is doing better in the promotion area.
In any case, I am using snapfish for last weekend’s Long Island romantic getaway.
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