BizAims

Making purchases online became an easy and quite comfortable task. However, there are companies whose websites perform fast sales. These companies most of the time leave the customer wanting. Such statement occurred after the results provided by ForeSee, which is a research company that made a study on on-line customer satisfaction.

Representatives of Merchant Commerce, e-commerce service provider, state that gift cards might be a good strategy to improve a company's experience. Such gift cards are useful for rewarding loyal clientele as well as attracting new customers.

"People love to tell their friends about new shops or products they have found. Gift cards get shoppers in the door, whether it's a Web store or a physical outlet," mentioned Rebecca Campbell, Manager of Merchant Commerce. Despite the fact that e-commerce accounts yearly billions of dollars, this market still has only 10 percent share of the whole retail market. However, the continuous increase of electronic market sales shows much better results then the increase of traditional retail, thus the confidence of the customers and comfort of the electronic commerce do not represent a problem anymore.

According to the dual study, performed by shop.org and Forrester Research, one main issue remains the satisfaction of the consumer, followed by the price as the second important concern.

The study included the analysis of middle and high-cost goods from categories that registered a boost in sales. These include health and beauty supplies as well as sporting goods.

"Consumers put a premium on service, even more so than on convenience. The Web puts so many choices in front of the buying public; online merchants need a means of hooking shoppers in," states Clarence Briggs, Chief Executive Officer of AIT, which is Merchant Commerce's parent company.

Online shoppers that cannot find the desired good on a certain website will obviously open another, which would be easier to operate. This is where a tool for customer satisfaction can be applied. It might be a specific technology used by browsers. One of such tools implies the creation of shopping lists before customers make their purchase, thus easing the check-out process.

Another tool might allow customers to view and analyze different items at the same time. A site may also contain links to third-party assessments of a product line, having, for instance, links to news.

Businesses are already aware of the fact that more consumers are now willing to surf through what e-commerce offers. They surf the net for buying things or just to do research about goods. Merchants know it due to the fact that money that is being spent on search-engine marketing continuously rises. However, a lot of business owners vote for high ranking in Google than for what happens after a user enters the website.

Google, like any other search engine can only bring potential customers to the door, but it can't persuade buyers to purchase anything.