eMktg challenges 2

There is clearly a range of different issues that makes a person buy a particular product or service from a particular merchant. These range from price, to advertising, to contentment with a long-standing provider. And indeed all these traditional issues are important when attempting to sell your product or service through the web. However, the following three areas in particular need to be carefully addressed when looking for ways to convert an e-Shopper to an e-Buyer:

Having a compelling offer put right up in front of the e-Shopper
Beating or at least matching the competition on price
Providing a good overall web experience

Having a compelling value proposition or offer right up on the home page is a good start towards getting someone to buy from you. The European cut-price airline Ryanair.com does this well with regular offers of flights from the UK to Dublin for just a few pounds. It is not always easy to find these very inexpensive fares, although just enough exist for the word to go around that people have flown on such a low priced ticket. However, the offer is so attractive that visitors allow themselves to be drawn deeper into the website and even if considerably more has to be paid to obtain a flight on the required date and at the required time, the original offer was sufficiently compelling to move the e-Shopper to wanting to do the deal.

Figure 1 is an example of the Ryanair.com homepage.

Staying with the example of Ryanair.com, the website is well-designed site and the number of clicks required to make a reservation enquiry and obtain a selection of available flights is few, so having perhaps responded to the compelling offer, the fact that the website then works well and offers a product that suits you, makes you more inclined to purchase.

Figure 1: Compelling offer on the homepage of Ryanair.com

A compelling offer is invariably set around price and a second issue that is important for successful e-Business is the ability to compare different offers on the grounds of price. It is very easy for a web savvy individual to obtain price comparisons and indeed there are websites designed specifically for this purpose. Examples include, bestbookbuys.com and kelkoo.com. There are also comparison features in the popular search engines such as Yahoo.com and Altavista.com. The e-Shopper types in a product description and the comparison site searches the websites registered with it for that product, usually bringing a list of different sources of the product up on the screen within seconds. Figure 2 below shows the results of a search for a book using the price comparison site bestbookbuys.com. Notice there is a significant difference in the prices at which this book is being offered and the expensive suppliers of this book need to be aware that a high price can be a very significant disadvantage.

Figure 2: Results of a price comparison performed through bestbookbuys.com

It is interesting to note from the above table that Amazon.com, a site that has built its reputation on offering cut-price books, is not on this list.

Therefore you should firstly check that you are able to compete on the issue of price with other suppliers on the web, and then it is a good idea to register with the major price comparison sites, or possibly even consider having a price comparison button on your own website.

For some time now, web observers have been saying that web users are not as loyal to particular brands, as they are to having a good web experience while shopping. Therefore the third area that needs to be carefully addressed when converting e-Shoppers to e-Buyers is the overall experience that an individual has whilst visiting the website. If a compelling offer took three attempts to complete and was only delivered 10 days later, it is likely that the user will look elsewhere next time – even at a higher price.

So what constitutes a good e-Shopping experience? The overall design of the website plays a central role. This includes issues like fast download times, small number of clicks to completion, and clear and short forms to fill out at the end of the buying cycle. Alongside these considerations, having a quick and easy way of contacting people in the vending firm is a very helpful and encouraging factor. It is therefore important to include contact information at every level of the e-Shopping process. This should be a telephone number, fax number, email address as well as a physical address. A feature being adopted by an increasing number of websites is a callback system. With such a system the e-Shopper enters his/her telephone number and indicates when they would like to be called back and someone from the vending website organisation calls back to assist the e–Shopper. Hoverspeed.co.uk operates this facility and when the user is called back their query is answered and where relevant the user is left the option to complete the order by telephone, or to return to the website. Figure 3 shows the callback button on the Hoverspeed.co.uk website.

Figure 3: Hoverspeed.co.uk online reservations with callback facility

Of course, including contact details or having a callback feature requires appropriate back-office management to ensure that the customer is properly serviced.

In an extension of this personalisation approach some websites are beginning to use the equivalent of on-line chat technology to provide real-time, on-line assistance. This can be very effective, providing that the communications channel between the e-Shopper and the vending website is sufficiently fast and reliable for the interaction to feel smooth and personal.

The final and most important aspect of a good overall experience is when the product meets the users needs at the right price and the customer receives it in the expected timeframe. Then it is a question of managing the relationship with that e-Buyer to ensure that they return to the website to e-Purchase again.

Sue Nugus is one of Europe’s leading trainers. Over a period of 20 years she has conducted numerous courses and seminars on a wide range of topics related to how to improve business performance though the use of information technology and telecommunications. She has been working in the Internet, Web and e-Business field since it first became an important issue some five years ago. Sue can be contacted at sue@mcil.co.uk

Professor Dan Remenyi is an e-Business consultant and author of several books on the subject of how to improve organisational performance through the most effective employment of IT. His latest book is called The Effective Measurement and Management of IT Costs and Benefits. He is contactable at dan.remenyi@tcd.ie