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Sunday
- September 10, 2000
Web Retailers Neglecting Web Technologies
Not even one in five online retailers deploys well-accepted
and widely supported Web technologies such as Java, Flash,
or chat functions to enhance online shopping experience and
close sales-according to a new report from Jupiter Communications,
Inc. Jupiter's report advises that online retailers abandon
conservative Web site development practices and optimize
their interactive real estate to match the technical capabilities,
of most online consumers that can support a rich interface
adequately.
As audiences upgrade hardware, add plug-ins,
and upgrade to faster Internet connections, the addressable
consumer technology environment becomes more diverse. At
the same time, consumers expect a richer online shopping
experience because of the exposure they receive through new
interfaces on most sites. Merchants operating in complex
online product categories—auto, real estate, home furnishings
and housewares, PCs and peripheral devices, and apparel—now
have the opportunity to integrate advanced applications that
can satisfy the needs and address the problems of more experienced
online shoppers. Merchants must move to meet consumers' heightened
expectations now as late movers will lose audience and market
share.
"Many retailers have designed their sites
for the lowest common denominator, which is shortsighted,
particularly for vendors of high-consideration goods," said
Lydia Loizides, an analyst with Jupiter Communications. "This
practice ensures support for technology laggards, but retailers
must also meet the rising expectations of experienced online
shoppers. Competitive pressure will make support for advanced
technologies a must-have for sites operating in the complex
product market. Retailers will have to offer more to their
customers than just basic textual representation, search,
and price comparison."
In a new Jupiter Executive Survey of online
merchants, 60 percent cited customer feedback as a primary
factor in their decision to integrate advanced technologies
into the user interface. However, a recent Jupiter Consumer
Survey of online shoppers found that more than 50 percent
of respondents indicated they would use the technology if
it were available. Specifically, 56 percent said they would
use items such as virtual dressing rooms, and 51 percent
said they would use zoom-and-spin technology if available.
According to Loizides, merchants must proactively
deploy technologies that enhance the process of searching
for and evaluating products and services online, or they
will lose customers to those that offer a richer online experience.
PCs have evolved—and speakers, microphones, and support for
processor-intensive multimedia is commonplace—yielding an
environment in which Web ventures can integrate advanced
imaging and graphics technologies, including voice and audio
features creatively.
Online retailers should place technologies
on a graduating scale of complexity. Web sites implement
a wide range of applications that target audiences from those
of low bandwidth, low-consumer technology to those on the
high-end of those scales. However, marketing and technology
departments of online retailers have focused on purchasing
and checkout phases and hyper-focused on abandoned shopping
carts and purchase forms. Loizides encourages merchants to
incorporate technologies that can ease this process by including
tools for product and price comparison, advanced search bots,
and visualization clients that present a finer level of detail.
Companies Dropping ".com" From Their Names
According to Forbes:
"If Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers kept
their given names, the dashing duo would have been called
Frederick Austerlitz and Virginia McMath--names that don't
exactly scream elegance. Likewise, Internet companies that
keep their original dot-com names are more likely to be associated
with doom than profit.
As many dot-coms are losing the name as there
are people racing to claim it. New York-based About.com officially
changed its name to About Inc.; Hollywood, Calif.-based JFax.com
switched to j2 Global Communications; Redmond, Wash.-based
InfoSpace.com, dumped the dot-com. And those are only a few
of the better-known examples..."
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2000 News Archive
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