Digital News

£11.9 Billion lost due to online negligence

You don’t need to be an industry expert to know that retail consumers have very high demands and expectations from high street stores. You may not realise that online customers particularly the UK are even worse according to a new survey.

An independent survey into online user behaviour revealed that 9 out of 10 online shoppers from the UK have experienced transactional or shopping cart problems in the last year. Of that figure over half (49%) would terminate their transaction the instant they experience problems resulting in them not making a purchase at all or switching directly to the competitor which is the fewest clicks away.

The rate of transactional termination due to technical issues or dissatisfaction in 2008 is estimated to have affected £11.9 billion in online revenue worldwide (reported by NMA September 2008).

Online businesses need to make every effort to streamline and improve the experience of their visitors. The reward will be increased ROI, improved brand trustworthiness and loyal custom leading to repeat business. With so many businesses now relying on the online channel and with consumers going online for the latest credit crunch beating deals, it is worrying that so many e-commerce businesses are not actively trying to improve the experience of online buyers.

When looking into e-marketing solutions and methods to increase business. Businesses need to look beyond the common low key ad-words and display offering to simply pull in traffic and look at more advanced services like search engine optimisation (SEO) and integrated paid search campaigns that actively pursue the end goal of traffic converting into results and not simply a useless influx of mass audience.

Very few providers of e-marketing offer the services that can meet these criteria. In a fast growing online market place saturated by choice and competition, any one looking to make an impact of the industry and serious grow new business online needs to be taking usability and functionality into account when promoting and marketing their online business.