One Step Ahead Walks Off With Silver

Baby products merchant One Step Ahead has carved out a solid business selling unique products, and guarantees its customers can shop with confidence in its e-commerce site. The judges of the 2010 MCM Awards clearly felt that confidence, and awarded OneStepAhead.com a Silver in the Children’s Products category.

Why it won a Silver:
OneStepAhead.com’s cross-merchandising is logical and well done, according to the judging panel. For example, the suggested items for a child’s rocker chair were other bedroom accessories: a sling bookshelf with storage bins, a collapsible toy box and pillow covers.

Anxious parents looking for the right product need not fear when on OneStepAhead.com. The site is loaded with product information and supplementary photos that are designed to give shoppers confidence in their purchase decision.

In particular, “the home page packs a lot of information in a clear, brand-consistent way,” a judge said. “Promotions are strong, as are key seasonal categories and features.”

The site offers plenty of user-generated content like ratings and reviews— One Step Ahead has one of the better implementations of Power Reviews, a judge said. A smart search that returned relevant items by keyword and not just product type.

With that, one judge felt One Step Ahead should be able to make a seamless transition into social media, primarily for traffic and community building. But it’s nice to know that the site is focused on e-commerce, a judge said. “It’s great they have their priorities straight when it comes to some of the dynamic stuff they are working on.”

Why it didn’t win a Gold
The copy is good for a catalog, but it’s not written for the Web, plus the page titles are weak from an SEO perspective. For Web copy, “it’s marginal at best,” a judge said. “There are no headlines, subheads, captions, quick facts, or other things that the online user prefers.”