Internet shoppers up the ante for retailers

The State of Retailing Online 2007, released Sept. 18 from Shop.org and Forrester Research Inc., surveyed 150 retailers about their top priorities for their Web sites. The top items on the list were fixing design and performance issues, improving the efficiency of online marketing and enhancing cross-channel integration.

“Today’s online shopper is extremely Web-savvy and expects more than ever, forcing retailers to raise the stakes,” said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, in a news release from the National Retail Federation. “Companies are investing in new features that will keep customers coming back, and homepages everywhere are getting a major facelift.” 

Site changes

Fixing product detail pages is at the top of retailers’ list of things to do over the next year; the survey showed that 88 percent of retailers plan to focus on improving product-detail page content, including adding new images and incorporating customer ratings and reviews.

Online retailers are also focused on customer service, with 33 percent of companies planning to invest in live chat features and 53 percent planning to enhance their guest checkout process in the next 12 months.

“It’s encouraging to see more retailers planning to integrate customer feedback loops into their sales processes,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, Forrester Research senior analyst and lead author of the report.

Customer communication

Online retailers continued to allocate the majority of their marketing budget – 51 percent – toward online customer acquisition tactics and another 24 percent toward customer retention programs.

Paid search continues to be the most effective marketing tactic to find new customers, while e-mail marketing is still the most effective tool for keeping customers coming back.

According to the survey, retailers find that e-mails about new products are more successful than simple sale messages; nearly three-quarters of retailers send e-mails to customers about new products.

New “Web 2.0” tools, including social networking Web sites, receive a great deal of attention among company executives but are still relatively unused as marketing tools.

Retailers also understand the connection between online services and other types of business. Survey results show that 35 percent of online customers have purchased from a brick-and-mortar location, while 43 percent of catalog customers have also purchased from the company’s online store.

“The perception that catalogs are a dying breed could not be further from the truth,” Silverman said.

“For online retailers, catalogs are an incredibly important tool for acquiring new customers and providing current customers with their first look at new products,” he said. “Retailers understand that many consumers get a catalog in the mail, then buy the item online.”