With e-commerce growth rates predicted to decline, online businesses wishing to outperform competition and gain market share, are increasingly required to invest in order to differentiate themselves, deploy richer and innovative applications and deliver more personal, compelling and engaging online user experiences.
Scene7, part of Adobe Systems, released the results of a business survey entitled "Web 2.0 Experience 2008 and beyond", identifying and analysing how online businesses will be investing in order to enhance their customer experience. Key findings indicated that more than 50 percent plan to deploy new features and rich Internet enhancements including enhanced imagery, personalisation and user-generated content to their sites within the next six months, with 93 percent wishing to deploy an increasingly engaging customer experience by the end of the year. Mobile commerce, widget sharing, personalised messaging and user ratings & reviews were identified as the greatest growth areas for innovation. Other top-ranking features included 360-degree spin, zoom and alternative views, microsites, videos, blogs, RSS and product tours together with online catalogs and personalized stores that were ranked as equally effective.
Increased clicks, usage and conversions (for 6 out of 10 Web site operators) together with revenue growth (for nearly half of them) and qualitative feedback were reported as critical effectiveness indicators for measuring the success of these enhancements and additional investments in these new functionalities. Other evaluation metrics included reduced abandonment rates (35.5%), increased repeat purchases (29.6%) and higher average order size (28.4%).
E-commerce is still just scraping the surface of its full potential. For further insight on this topic, I would highly recommend this excellent white paper from Scene7 which discusses historical factors that have brought the industry to its current state, identifies five key principles expected to guide the next phase of e-commerce, outlines barriers & considerations and discusses how leaders & innovators are now bringing some dramatic changes to win and differentiate in the next phase.
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