Word cloud

Thanks Lena for introducing me to http://www.wordle.net/ Here is the word cloud of my blog! Interesting which words it's picked up on, and looks a lot nicer than the tag cloud I'm using.


http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/587421/nickijb

Online shopping stats in UK

Just read this nma article about online shopping in the UK.

According to the Experian 'Engaging Online with the Empowered Customer' report, online shopping grew 31% in the past 12 months compared to 1% for off-line catalogues. 31%! Wow! Isn't that amazing with the UK recession?! Thinking about it a bit longer though, I don't have all the figures for this. Maybe it is a move from the high street into online because users feel they are getting a better price online?

It goes on to say that although there is this great increase, the report finds that 70% of the business is done by 30% of the customers, so not much repeat business... are people so price sensitive that they are just using search engines or comparison sites to check prices and are not loyal to an online brand?

Maybe it's a bit of that, but also the user experience is still frustrating customers or just not making enough of a positive impact, to make them remember the brand and return?

I like ecommera's 10P's of ecommerce methodology. This covers not only the usability and functionality of the website (point 3 - Place) but also everything you need around the platform, processes, order management systems and promotions to support the site. I like the analogy of the website being the tip of the iceberg visible to the customer, with all the processes and systems that must be considered for the site to be successful below.

As the nma article suggests, I also think the issue around online/offline channels needs to be addressed still. Too many retailers treat their website as a completely separate business. E.g. If I buy something from a site's online shop, and it's not right, I want the piece of mind to know that I can easily return it to my local high street store, and not have to queue up at the post office (that can be so annoying!).

Some stores are allowing this now (I think the Arcadia group?) and others are moving in the right direction by clearly stating returns policies and by having detailed product information pages so that users aren't as likely to need to return items.

Truly integrating these channels would also not only benefit the customer, but the marketing opportunities created by merging customer databases could be great.

I look forward to see what happens in this area over the next 12 months...