Do Business Well

According to research company Forrester (www.forrester.com), two-thirds of e-Shopping transactions are aborted after the shopper has already placed goods in the shopping basket, and nine out of ten buyers do not make a repeat purchase. e-Retailers need to make the purchasing process reliable, easy to use and efficient, removing the reasons for abandoning purchases. Human contact needs to be available to sort out problems — at least by email, but preferably also with a phone option. A software device such as HyPhone from Byzantium allows ‘phone- through’ without dropping the Internet connection (www.byzantium.com during office hours for a live demonstration).

A US survey correlated Web site characteristics with customer satisfaction. The conclusion was that success followed the content. A further important discriminator between high and low customer satisfaction was the ‘chat’ aspect (Feinberg 2001). Other US studies have found that the strongest predictor of consumers’ intention to e-Shop was `hedonic’ ; that is, the pure enjoyment of the experience (Childers et al. 2001; Dholakia and Uusitalo 2001). The importance of the enjoyment and human communication aspects is borne out by, for example, eBay (a US auction site (www.ebay.com)), with its emphasis on community interests such as chat rooms and bulletin boards, ‘one of the few Internet start-up companies to be avoiding financial pain’ (Reynolds 2000).

In-store, male and female behaviour have been demonstrated to be different, with females tending to value the social and experiential aspects, males being more purposeful shoppers. e-Shopping, though, is poor at providing the social and experiential benefits, but good at finding the best deals quickly — the male purposeful style (Dennis et al. 2001; Lindquist and Kaufman-Scarborough 2000). Male and female shopping behaviour tend to be much more similar on the Web than in-store, meaning that females are losing out on social and experiential benefits. According to US surveys, two-thirds of Web site visitors ‘will not buy online until there is more human interaction’, and women in particular want a ’sense of personalized relationship’ (Harris 1998; McCarthy 2000). e-Retailers should make the buying process more personal and interactive, especially for female shoppers.

DOS AND DON’TS OF E-RETAILING

Don’ts

• Save your best page till last
• Use too many graphics (long download)
• Fill each page, leaving no ‘white space’
• Use too much narrative and long-winded wording
• Have too many sequential click-through pages

Dos

• Make it easy to buy (`three clicks’)*
• Provide good service and aftercare*
• Provide membership incentives*
• Human communication, chat rooms and bulletin boards*
• Make e-Shopping an enjoyable experience — especially for female shoppers. Design the `Webmosphere’ for enjoyable shopping: video, audio, graphics and virtual store layout*
• Open with a strong introduction — great home page
• Design creative visual images
• Create a company image that makes your Web site stand out
• Avoid a clustered visual image (too many banners, too much information)
• Reinforce brand image and build brand strength
• Use short, concise phrases
• Vividly describe product benefits
• Offer speed-navigation to known points
• Build in customer interactivity
• Provide expert information
• Update displays regularly
• Price competitively
• Provide loyalty incentives
• Include testimonials from satisfied customers and, if possible, well-known personalities
• Offer a clear guarantee

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