| A recent survey showed that when it comes to how people buy online, retailers pay as much attention to how the shopping experience ends as they do to how it starts. According to “The State of Retailing Online 2009: Merchandising Report,” conducted by Forrester Research, eight out of 10 retailers (79 percent) said enhancing the checkout process was at the top of their to-do lists for the remainder of the year, with 90 percent of medium-sized retailers listing checkout as a top priority. (Medium-sized retailers are companies with $10 million to $100 million in sales.)
The largest initiative seems to be an emphasis on shipping. Almost 90 percent of retailers will focus on providing more shipping information within the net year. It will include details such as when a customer can expect to receive a package and when products have left the warehouse. In addition, two-thirds of retailers (67 percent) said they would pay special attention to calculating the loaded cost of an order prior to checkout.
In an era of tight budgets, the increased focus on checkout is balanced by a somewhat lessened focus on home page improvement, with 60 percent of companies saying they would concentrate on improving their homepage, down from previous years. According to the report, retailers have learned that many shoppers bypass the homepage altogether because comparison shopping engines and search engines often direct them to specific pages on retailers’ websites instead.
Product detail pages
Customers want as much information as possible before they buy, so retailers continue to enhance the quality of information on product detail pages. According to the survey, retailers will focus on alternative images of products, zoom, and color or fabric swatches this year.
They are also relying on shoppers themselves to provide key information to product detail pages. Sixty percent of the retailers surveyed use customer ratings and reviews, and 55 percent of companies will make ratings and reviews a priority for the coming year. Thirty-four percent will incorporate automated recommendation tools by third parties for their site.
In addition to improving detail on current pages, retailers are adding new pages to their sites to better accommodate shoppers on a budget. Nearly 90 percent of retailers say they are introducing sale or clearance pages to their sites in the coming months.
Search capabilities
Nearly three-quarters of the retailers surveyed plan to add different skins or filters to their search functions, which would enable shoppers to choose multiple attributes like brand, color, price and size to their site search. In addition, 41 percent of retailers surveyed said they are evaluating introducing an entirely new search engine to their websites.
Forrester Research is an independent research company that provides advice to global leaders in business and technology. The company provides proprietary research, consumer insight, consulting, events and peer-to-peer executive programs.
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