The web’s lesson

Which are these new rules?

Most of the variables that help people move through their decision making process have changed their order of importance.  When the world of business shifted to a world of e-business, people subsequently changed their purchasing habits..

Successfully selling on the web requires learning the web's lessons. I will use one recent research to present one of the most important ones. According this research, the most important reasons for leaving a web-site without purchasing are:

* could not find the items they were looking for;
* shopping cart - hard to find;
* long checkout;
* site was not trustworthy;
* shipping charges were too high.

When digging deeper, we found that the first three reasons could be placed or categorized under a common origin: TIME. Most of the online shoppers didn't buy from the website because they had no extra time to keep looking for the product they wanted, to locate the shopping cart or the process of the checkout was too long. The 2 remaining reasons on the list, that formerly took a prominent place, although still important, are now ranked lower.

What does this mean?
It means that the key to success in selling over Internet is to give customers what they want and give it to them NOW. Any extra click or unnecessary content can cost you big money.

Internet shoppers will abandon your site immediately if you don't make it easy for them to buy. The experience of today's online shoppers gets bigger every day and so does their expectations of you. You not only have to research their needs and customize your product, but moreover, research how do they want to buy your product and optimize your web presence.

Yes, that's a lot of work. You will constantly have to monitor the movements of your website visitors through your web pages, come up with website structure that brings more profits, be there for any additional questions your visitors might have or even predict when they are going to leave your website and persuade them to stay and move forward.

All of these requires a big effort, I agree, but it will ensure your survival and growth. Using something as simple as an online chat software, you will not only save your web visitors a whole lot of time, but also you will convert them into customers. And most importantly, you will rest assured that they will come back and continue purchasing from you.

After all, the key to successful online presence is seeing the web for what it really is: just another way to reach and serve customers, but with an efficient business model.
So now we are back to our first question: what has the web taught us so far? What is the web’s lesson?

All the web-sites out there are no longer seen as a company’s display of information and contact details. A web-site in the XXI century is the place where you CONNECT with your customers and serve them as fast as real time.