Even though the economy has yet to make a full recovery, e-tailers have been found to be looking towards increasing their e-commerce capabilities in a recent report by e-Marketer. The report was based on a study by Internet Retailer and Vovici Corp., which found that more than seven in ten Web merchants planned to increase spending on advanced e-commerce applications and services this year.
For web-only retailers, content management was the most popular aspect to improve, whereas for store-based retailers, it was site search. For catalogue-based retailers, it was a tie between site search and order management. For consumer brand manufacturers, personalization won out as the most important application to improve (by a large margin).
The study also found social marketing to be significantly high on the e-tailers’ list of online marketing priorities, with 50 percent of respondents saying it was their top priority among advanced e-commerce applications. Next on the list was video, with blogs following closely behind in third place, nearly tied with customer ratings and reviews.
According to David Fry, founder of e-commerce specialist company, Fry Inc., it’s been five years since many e-tailers have installed new e-commerce applications, and its beyond time for an update. “Smart retailers know they need to implement better technology now or they’ll miss out on the recovery and a big opportunity,” said Fry to Internet Retailer.
E-tailers are beginning to become aware that they need to beef up their e-commerce sites, especially in light of a recent study which showed that online shoppers were not receiving the support they needed down the funnel of e-commerce (ie. As the shopper approaches check-out). In fact, it was found that most visitors to online shops were there to learn (38.6 percent), whereas only 21.9 percent were there to shop. But not all these shoppers were there to buy – only 17.2 percent of the respondents who went to the e-commerce site ended up buying something.
The most common reason (given by one-third of the respondents) these shoppers stated for not buying something is that they didn’t find what they needed.
Such a low task completion rate is not helpful to e-tailers, who are already struggling enough as it is in this recession. It makes sense for them to take this extra step, in order to be ready for the influx of online shoppers as the recession comes to a close.
Kaila Krayewski is a freelance journalist with a passion for all things internet. Having worked for nearly two years as the public relations manager for an internation search engine optimization company, and publishing hundreds of articles (how-to, informational, and otherwise) on SEO, she knows a thing or two about the field. Furthermore, having just started up her own website blondetraveler.com, she is doing her best to keep one step ahead of the search engines in order to keep the traffic flowing.
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