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"Take control of the administration and management of your web site."
So you want to update your price list or post some new products to your web site - that shouldn't be so hard, right? Quickly update text and images, publish new content, and add new pages to any existing web page in minutes.
You cannot operate a successful, thriving business enterprise that includes your web site unless it’s proactively administered and managed just like the rest of your business. You should not leave your web site design and/or your web site unattended either. A stagnant, inactive and dormant web design and web site simply cannot compete in today's ever changing global community.
We believe that by working closely together as a team, we will gain a thorough understanding of your business requirements and can, therefore, exceed your expectations.
At DPG, we believe that it is important to be involved in your web site from the custom web site design and development, to the strategic conceptualization, the online publication, post-launch maintenance support, internet marketing / communications, and training initiatives.
In the last few years, Web retailers have increased their marketing budgets without seeing any increase in their strikingly low sales-conversion rates. Why is this happening?
- online marketers are largely unaware of their customers' preferences, and
- an overreliance on Web metrics is also to blame.
On the one hand, more consumers than ever are buying merchandise (i.e., products and/or services) online, but the ratio of those who make purchases on any given site compared to those who just browse remains tiny - and appears to be shrinking. Consumers, on average, spend at least $109 billion online.
On the other hand, only 2 percent of e-commerce visitors are converted into buyers, a conversion rate that has changed little in recent years.
Meanwhile, online retailers devoted 29 percent of their sales budgets to marketing in 2006, up from 27 percent the year before, (three-fourths of that went to online marketing and one-fourth to offline). E-mail marketing was the most popular technique to try to reengage, reinforce and retain customers. Seasonal discounts, coupons and cross-selling recommendations were other common practices.
However, these methods are not proving to be enough, as shown by the stubbornly low conversion rates. Jeffrey Gau, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the "U.S. Retail E-Commerce Update," stated that the disconnection between spending and results can be attributed to online retailers doing too little traditional market research while relying too much on Web metrics. To improve conversion rates, online retailers should focus more on traditional quantitative market research, he said. By relying too much on Web metrics, retailers are not looking at what is actually behind the numbers.
Market research invariably tells retailers why customers are doing things, which is different than only measuring what consumers are clicking on. Online retailers should utilize focus groups, e-mail and consumer conversations with customer service agents to find out what people really care about. Web analytics and/or Web metrics follow user's behavior which does not explain why people do things.
Research indicates that the top-performing e-commerce sites (i.e., those with conversion rates of more than 10 percent) stand out from the majority of retailers because they know their customers and their competition well enough to provide a one-stop shopping experience offering convenience and customized features suited to their target audience.
Another example shows that consumers prefer unrestricted free shipping over all other marketing promotions. Consumers said they had a better image of the retailer and were more likely to buy products and recommend the site to others if it had unrestricted free shipping.
Subsequent research shows that on some sites customers may want a broader range of payment methods and in other cases may want the option of in-store pickup. Personalized services can, and should be used, as marketing and communication tools to drive retention and loyalty.
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