Online retailers know that what really matters is sales...not "what's easiest to build," not "what brand will pay us to promote them," and not "what spin to put on our PR." Ringing up sales means thinking about consumers first.
(The real marketing element of this = think about your users first, a lesson that countless "local search sites" and "pay per call" providers still haven't figured out...they keep trying to build a base of paying advertisers without really meeting consumers' needs.)
Anyway, like any good marketing maven, I keep an eye on internet retailing. These are companies working to make the online experience truly useful. In the SJ Mercury News coverage (June 9) of the recent Internet Retailing Conference., one paragraph had me yelling, "Hooray - yes!"
Streamlining the checkout process to a single page should be a priority, said Gene Alvarez, analyst at the Gartner. "Anyone here ever complete all your information, get something wrong, hit the back button and it's all gone?," Alvarez asked conference goers. "Imagine the checkout being a sidebar on the Web page, so no matter where I go on your Web store, there it is."
This isa real-world, practical application...good marketing as well as good sense.
I'm happy to link to the entire Mercury News article - though I have a bad feeling that after a short period of time the MN sticks their posts behind a paid archive service, so if that's what you get, complain to the Merc, not me. Full Story
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