E-Commerce News and Products.

Curing Website Abandonment.... Paul Hanley Cast Systems

Companies expend considerable resource on website design and implementation. It is not unusual for a large website to cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to `go live'. However, the large percentage of this money would be better spent funding the staff Christmas party - at least the increase in morale may benefit the company's performance! A number of acknowledged experts in the ecommerce sector presented data at a New York conference last year, which caused a stir amongst the show's visitors. The topic of concern was ecommerce transaction abandonment rates. The data presented showed that throughout the market sectors surveyed, abandonment rates for complex web transactions could be as high as 85% to 95%. This information may not seem earth-shattering to the everyday web user, but those who fully understood the implications of the data were clearly shaken.

The goal of every ecommerce website is to attract visitors, then maintain their attention long enough to allow them to purchase goods or services online. A complex web transaction is one that requires personalisation or customisation of goods or services. If the ecommerce abandonment rate for such transactions is 95% this means that for every twenty people who try to purchase goods online, only one person successfully completes the transaction. More importantly, nineteen potential customers who have committed to buying, go elsewhere and probably to a competitor. So why such high rates of abandonment? Processor chips are doubling in speed every eighteen months, and high-speed data transfer lines are becoming more widely available. As a result, users expect to have data presented to them in a pleasing and customised format, at high speed. Delays that twelve months ago would have been considered acceptable, have become frustrating to the point of distraction. Users are aware that they shouldn't have to wait, so why do so?

There is a new breed of user that worries the ecommerce industry - the window shopper. Many users use sites for pricing comparisons only, with no intention to buy. This makes abandonment rates even more critical. Companies spend huge amounts of money on attracting visitors, and significant amounts on ensuring that visitors stay - indeed some companies actually part with monies to ensure search engine positioning. Consultants and graphic designers are employed, and spend months developing story boards, animation sequences, and music files, with the sole intention of creating a site that satisfies the now sophisticated palate of the everyday user. To add salt to the wound, marketing gurus have evangelised ecommerce to such a degree that user expectations are often higher than current technology permits! Investing money in an ecommerce website is a total waste of funds if the user cannot complete the transaction quickly, and easily. One of the major reasons that visitors abandon sites is transaction complexity. Visitors are often faced with static webforms (typically nothing more than online replicas of existing paper forms) that request information that is entirely inappropriate, unnecessarily detailed, or just plain boring. We've all read form instructions "if answer is YES and you are a present customer go to section 8b. If answer is NO go to section...." and been confused. Transferring this type of form to a website falls far short of user expectations, more importantly, it fails to take advantage of currently available technology to dynamically guide a user. Users with a tree intent to buy, want to visit a site, decide upon their purchase, and make the purchase with as little fuss as is possible. Users accept that some information gathering will be required, but require that this be kept to a bare minimum.

Clearly, in order to maintain user interest during a complex web transaction, a degree of interaction is required. CAST Systems of Cambridge has worked with a number of banks, building societies and finance companies to address this very issue. Through advanced software development and the unpretentious application of current technologies, they have created a personalised and efficient webform, that requests only relevant data, responds intelligently in realtime, prefills the form with known information, and demonstrates seamless integration with existing systems. The webform structure is fluid, and effectively evolves as it applies input data to pre- determined business logic. Selections that are incompatible with previous user responses are removed from dropdown menus, or 'greyed out'. For example, a single man in rented accommodation applying for a loan, would not be asked about his mortgage or wife's earnings. Instead, he would be asked if he is renting a furnished or unfurnished property. This is done instantly, and without slow server validation trips. The user doesn't feel that he is completing a form, rather engaging in a one-to-one conversation. The resulting session is a much more pleasant, personalised, interactive and efficient use of time. As a result, the chances of the user completing the transaction are hugely increased.

So why isn't everyone creating interactive, personalised webforms? Firstly, not everyone has the skills required to develop such applications. Complex business logic requires definition and intricate workflows need to be applied. However, there are skilled companies who can complete the software development work, and as such this tends not to be the reason that organisations avoid this route. The prevalent reason, in contradiction to the teachings of the World's greatest sales experts, is that it is easier to `play the numbers game'. Some organisations, rather than addressing the abandonment issue, choose to invest time and effort in increasing traffic to the website. The logic is simple; if 5,000 visitors produce 100 sales, then 10,000 visitors should bring 200 sales. This logic, however, fails to address the loss of 9,800 prospective sales! This route can prove cheap in the short term, but in the mid to long term is substantially more expensive, and makes inefficient use of website traffic. Sales is not a numbers game - it is a quality game. Every single website visitor is a prospective sale, and should be treated as such. Competition for website traffic is becoming more aggressive as the number of ecommerce websites increases, so it is more vital than ever to maximise transaction conversion rates with existing traffic. The function of an ecommerce site is to create revenue, whilst streamlining the purchasing process and reducing operational costs. Whether the application is B2C or B2B, users' expectations are such that website interaction, and the ongoing management of such interaction within the business model, is now a requirement of a profitable ecommerce site. The technology is currently available, and correct implementation ensures a reduction in site abandonment rate, and can aid business process automation. Today's top performing companies are showing that only moderate investment is required to generate huge amounts of website traffic. How organisations manage this traffic will determine their success or failure in the ecommerce marketplace. Focussing on reducing transaction abandonment rates has now become an issue of high importance. Users now demand that purchasing is quick and easy, and interactive webforms have been highlighted as an excellent means of addressing these requirements by vastly simplifying the purchasing process. Sales is no longer about `closing' prospects or delivering glib, rehearsed responses to objections.

It is not about `the numbers game', or `hit and run' hard sell. It is about helping a prospect make the only logical choice - to purchase your goods or service. Prospects are lazy - fact. People want an easy life, and like water, will usually take the route of least resistance. Offer high quality, make purchasing attractive, clear and easy, and prospects will buy. Complexity chokes a revenue stream. www.cast-systems.com, CAST Systems Ltd are exhibiting at e-commerce Expo - SPRING, 3-5 April 2001, NEC, Birmingham, UK.

www.ebizexpo.com

E-Commerce News

Report on E-Supply Chain

Butler Group, has issued `E-Supply Chain: Modelling the Supply Chain tn the New Market Economies'. The new report examines the issues surrounding the evolving supply chain and its new market entrants. According to the report, the comfortable supply chain models that have been in existence for years are no longer supportable. The traditional supply chain model is becoming fragmented and is in danger of running out of control. Even within the last year the supply chain has changed dramatically. The interconnected elements that intrude on the supply chain are more numerous and far more volatile than they were previously. New e-market places will force all members of a supply chain to become more aware of the need to plan for change management if they are to survive the next few years with their businesses intact. `E-Supply Chain: Modelling the Supply Chain in the New Market Economies' also predicts that governments will become increasingly frustrated in their attempts to maintain fair trade. They will find legal intervention difficult because so much of trading will be hidden behind virtual doors, with complicated lines of responsibility and no specific legal framework on which to pin their case.

www.butlergroup.com.

Shopbots Threaten On-Line Brands

On-line retailers that continue to ignore the presence of `shopbots' are taking a serious business risk, according to a new report. The last few months have seen a rapid increase in the number of shopbots on the web. These new software programmes are able to poll lists of relevant retailers to compare prices of particular products, such as books, CD's, videos and computer hardware and software. They then direct the customer to the desired site and receive a small percentage of any transaction that ensues. But many e-tailers have been reluctant to link up with the shopbots; companies fear that the programmes will encourage consumers to find only the cheapest product available, undermining the vast amount of resources invested into building up the brand awareness and reputation.

This new technology is particularly threatening to the major brands, who have invested millions of pounds in constructing a particular brand image, only to risk being under-cut by a no frills `bargain basement' retailer, Ian Charlesworth, author of Butler Group's new report "E-Markets: Colonising the Emerging Digital Economy' states: "The most striking aspect of Shopbots is that they are completely inert to advertising, glossy store-fronts, or on-line reputation, which allows retailers of all types and sizes to be compared equally and simply. It is likely that many existing dot.coms that search for success by a capitakintensive dedication to the creation of killer brands may find the fide turning against them as infomediaries (such as shopbots) begin to leach control." According to Butler Group, the shift of power from brand-name retailers to automated bots will not happen immediately, but the change is inevitable:

www.butlergroup.com

e-tailers' Web catalogues of disaster

UK companies are wasting 780 hours per year updating their e-commerce sites manually, says Exchequer Software. Findings suggest that businesses which update product availability and pricing on their Web sites by hand may also be hindering sales because their full range is either not displayed or is out-of-date. The research into Web cataloguing found that over 78% of businesses do not offer their complete range of goods and services online. The main reason for this is that companies find it is too labour-intensive to keep e-commerce sites updated, due to lack of integration between back-office and e-commerce systems.

www.exchequer.com

European Incubators to Win.

IDC sees a sustainable role for incubators in Europe, with 15 to 20 strong pan - European incubators to emerge over the next three to five years. These will challenge the status quo and are positioned to create real value in Europe's new economy. IDC expects dynamic, overlapping networks to evolve around the successful incubators. According to, IDC the backlash against incubators following the spring 2000 market correction was only partially justified. Many companies that called themselves incubators never had plans broader than cashing in on the B2C ecommerce IPO frenzy, and those that do focus solely on this area face a serious challenge for survival. However, Europe's more progressive incubators were developing a broad and interesting variety of startup businesses including B2B and B2C initiatives, software and hardware development as well as businesses positioned around mobile innovation. Entrepreneurs are compelled to race to market with products and services before another entrepreneur gets there or before technological evolution makes the venture obsolete. This is where the right incubator can shorten time to market/trade sale/IPO, while increasing the odds of success. This is particularly true in Europe where the process of starting a new business is much more complicated. Looking to the future, IDC believes that there is a good argument for segmentation in the incubator industry based on European region, vertical market, and ebusiness model market.

www.emea.idc.com

4i eBusiness Platform UPdate.

Documentum have released the next generation of its 4i ebusiness Platform. It features enhancements, offering support of XML for content management and B2B interchange, as well as internationalisation and multilingual support, automated delivery of content to multiple channels, and integration with leading source code management systems. Content can be re-purposed rather than re-created and intelligently transformed and customised to suit the characteristics and formats of different devices and channels (e-commerce sites, portals, PDAS, wireless devices, and online exchanges / marketsites). Full lifecycle, workflow, security, and library services enable organisations to automate business processes, and link management services enable the reuse of content globally. The latest platform release is integrated with software configuration management systems, so Web site developers can manage, and deploy, both source code and content.

www.documentation.com

Progress Sonic MQ

Progress Software has begun shipping Progress SonicMQ Version 3.0 Sonic MQ is a solution for E-business messaging (EBM); a growing category of messaging middleware designed to meet the requirements of information integration and exchange over the Internet. SonicMQ 3.0 introduces a dynamic routing architecture (DRA) designed specifically to meet the requirements of e-business. (DRA) can dynamically support tens of thousands of connections or business partners to an e-business solution. As part of the DRA, interbroker clustering allows multiple SonicMQ servers to operate as a unit, eliminating single points of failure within the massaging infrastructure. Load balanciny and connect-time, e failover features ensure 24x7 availability and allows administrators, to establish an efficient routing configuration from a centralised configuration server.

www.progress.com

eBizinsights XL

eBizinsights XL, enables companies to improve site design, marketing strategie's and identify more efficient ways of delivering Web content through the provision of detailed Web traffic analysis. Companies can monitor activity of site users in real time and the reporting can be customised to define whatever promotions or visitor demographics the user wants to analyse.

www.visualinsights.com

UK address management cartridge for Intershop 4

Capscan, has launched its Fibrecity address checking and form filling `cartridge' for Intershop, provider of sell-side e-business applications. The cartridge allows a large number of sites based on Intershop 4 to literally `plug-in' the full functionality of Capscan's address management solution to provide form filling and address checking.

www.capscan.com