Robbin Steif has an interesting post, More on Website Goals, which I found an interesting read because it documents a trend NextStage is seeing more and more of, and I'm thinking it's tied to the increase in social networks. Basically, merchants are putting more capital "V" value in their brand while still recognizing the lower case "d" dollar-value.
Robbin uses the example of a site which closes its shopping cart on the sabbath. This is an excellent way of letting their market know their internal, psychological belief based values, the capital "V" values I mentioned above. There are many reasons to do this and one which may or may not have occurred to companies engaging in "V" value is that such behavior will be viewed by selected demographics as cultural identifiers. Just as I wrote in Online Privacy, finale, adding "V" value demonstrates to consumers that the company -- or at least the people running it -- is one in the same with them. As mentioned in Robbin's blog, NextStage does something similar with our Principles page. Originally people found this offputting, now more and more are contacting NextStage because of it. Our research that this kind of capital "V" value add is becoming more and more of a draw on many sites that we monitor.
Just an FYI; the real value-add may be a real Value add.
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