Wal-mart`s cross-sell lesson: When relying on technology, test a lot

[Kristijntje]

Walmart.com gave the e-retailing industry a lesson in relying on automated cross-selling yesterday when its movie cross-selling system linked a DVD of “Planet of the Apes” to movies with African-American themes. Walmart.com probably was the victim of a flawed automated rules structure, says Christian Donner, senior consultant and technical architect with Molecular Inc. In a statement issued yesterday, Walmart.com said the system “does not work correctly and at this point is mapping seemingly random combinations of titles.”

Donner cited another case in which an Austrian newspaper inadvertently put a link to ads for sex toys on eBay at the end of a story on a child molester...

The only way to prevent unintentional connections is to do the process manually. “This is not a practical approach for sites with a large inventory and a wide variety of products such as Walmart.com, however,” Donner says...

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=17202

[bargainbloodhound]

The only way to prevent unintentional connections is to do the process manually.

I already do them manually...  ...not because I want to, but because the cross-sell module in Zen is manual.   :'( .  I think the buyer is shown more relevant products when it is done manually (especially compared to the auto cross-sells on eBay or Marketworks), but it is a time consuming PITA...and speaking of cross selling, we have a bunch of cross-sells to setup that we've put off doing for a few weeks now.  :-[

Added for Anita's benefit --> Wal-Mart sucks and this whole thing was probably done intentionally. 

EDITED to add: do you think this post needs a few more smilies?

[Anita]

Thanks BBH. 

[bargainbloodhound]

You're welcome.