September 3, 2004

Taking E-Commerce to the Next Level without Annoying Your Cusotmers

As you sit back and realize that now you've been successfully selling online for several months (or years), maybe it's time to take things up notch and sell smarter. What about better tracking of your customers? Better and more tracking of sales? But be cautious. As you do more - don't do too much and turn off your online customers.

For example, today I walked into Radio Shack and the sales person nicely greated me at the door and that was the extent of our discussion. However, I hate it when you walk into a Radio Shack or another small sized* store and the sales persons swarm on you like flies on horse mess - "How are you?", "How was your day?", "Can I help you?". Then they ask 10 million upgrade questions - "Would you like batteries?", "Would you like a super-duper service plan", "Would you like fries with that......."

(*Large stors are so big their sales staff can't follow you around the store all day)

Business Week writes It's back to the future for e-commerce, now that some of the technologies envisioned years ago are finally ready for prime time. With so many e-tailers profitable, they're finally ready to move ahead with adding new technologies that can take online shopping to the next level.

For shoppers, the next level means more interactivity, better visuals, and improved search results with more product information. It also means being watched more closely by sites and receiving personalized pitches based on past browsing behavior -- which can be a little creepy. For retailers, this next phase presents an opportunity to generate more sales volume, but it also requires treading carefully so as not to anger customers by invading their privacy.

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