Control Freaks Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM
, BY DAVID FRY
JobZone
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A woman goes online in search of a new blouse. She's not exactly sure of what she's looking for, so she asks her sister to shop with her. Her sister thinks her style is similar to a friend's, so the sister invites the friend to shop, as well.
Although the three are in different locations across the country, they'll soon experience a shopping trip as if they had met in person and walked into the store together. The three visit the same Website and start chatting through the site about styles and colors.
The woman chooses a blouse and with a click of her mouse shows how to push up the sleeves to create a different look. Her sister clicks the blouse and changes the color, while her friend confirms the new color choice is the right move.
The shopper likes their choices and wants to find another blouse with the same style collar, so she uses her mouse to highlight the collar and conducts a visual search to find similar items. Once she selects her items, the others help her accessorize, dragging and dropping complementary items into a virtual dressing room for her to see.
After her purchase, the shopper rates the pairings, uploads a photo of herself wearing her purchased items, and adds notes about each item. She saves the new outfits on the site so she can refer to them the next time she shops.
Simply put, the next generation online storefront puts the customer in control.
SALES, SHOPPERS START TO SHRINK
E-commerce is undergoing a fundamental transition. Retailers once relied on building a straightforward Website with links and images, and then customers arrived to shop.
For several years, millions of people new to e-commerce began shopping on the Web each year and merchants gained sales from the new channel by virtue of being online.
The combination of e-commerce sites that differ from earlier incarnations, coupled with a declining stream of new online shoppers, is a clear signal: Retailers are facing a world in which they will have to work harder than ever to keep their Websites relevant, effective, and easy to use just to gain new customers, keep existing buyers, and increase conversion.
According to Jupiter Research, the growth of online retailing is decreasing and will reach a plateau in the next several years. Forrester Research says online sales will continue to constitute only 9% of all retail sales despite an expected online sales increase from $132 billion in 2006 to $271 billion in 2011.
At the same time, an Internet explosion of user-driven Websites such as Flickr, YouTube, and Facebook are all changing the expectations of consumers on the Internet. When today's customers shop online, they seek experiences that reflect the interactivity and immediate responsiveness of various social networking sites they use daily.
They want to know what others think of a particular product and what they can pair it with; they also want the ability to add their own comments or feedback from others.
This shift in consumer behavior affects how retailers need to plan and design Websites. Every e-commerce site does not need to include every new or emerging technology.
But merchants do need to employ some of these new technologies and techniques to retain current customers and draw interest from new ones. Online shoppers will increasingly expect faster, more effective browsing and the ability to quickly interact with the Website and one another.
In other words, shopping online will more closely resemble an in-store experience. Technology and design changes create an atmosphere that better reflects a retail setting where like items are merchandised together and customers view products on their own terms.
Single-screen browsing mimics the ease of real-world shopping; a customer gathers items and adds them to the cart without leaving the page. A single-screen checkout allows the customer to purchase without clicking through multiple pages to complete the process.
When designing your site, keep this in mind: The more a retail site mirrors a real-world shopping experience, the more familiar and comfortable customers will be with online shopping.
TECHNOLOGIES CHANGE SHOPPING, MEASUREMENT
An increasing number of retail sites are exploring uses of AJAX, Flash, and other technologies to make the shopping process easier and more intuitive for customers.
AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) takes the click-and-wait out of user actions, such as drilling down in a menu or clicking through the checkout process.
Instead, shoppers stay on the same page while items and shopping cart contents update almost instantly without reloading the page. AJAX allows selected parts of the screen to update, improving the customer's product discovery process.
The shift away from click-and-wait browsing is being recognized across the industry as no temporary trend. Measurement services now take into account time spent on a Website rather than just the traditional count of page views.
Recently, Nielsen/NetRatings added both “total minutes” and “total sessions” metrics to its service. The reason? Because Web pages that use AJAX technology and streaming media can serve new content without reloading individual pages.
This fundamental shift in the way we measure Websites is an indicator that new Internet technologies are not just experiments. Rather, they are behind a lasting evolution that is altering the way people use Websites.
