A Tale of Two Ecommerce Sites: When They Work & When They Don’t

When The Boston Globe split off from Boston.com last year, the Globe hogged all the financial glory with their paywall (and smart re-design). Boston.com

When The Boston Globe split off from Boston.com last year, the Globe hogged all the financial glory with their paywall (and smart re-design). Boston.com was left with the corporate equivalent of spousal support.But Boston.com rallied and has played to its strengths as a lifestyle website. It eschewed the paywall Model and branched into ecommerce by selling sports tickets online. Some journalists may call it a conflict of interest, but 21st century journalists know the difference between journalism and content curation.And yet, while ecommerce cross-sales and upsales can work for a number of paywall and membership sites, it’s not always the best move. For example, Esquire just announced that it will be terminating its ecommerce venture with JC Penney. The main problem seem to be that the two brands had very different images with very different audiences.So make sure your mission and audience is served by your ecommerce venture before jumping on the bandwagon.

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