Online sales rose more than twenty-three percent this past year to $141.4 billion and by the end of this year online sales are expected to soar another twenty-two percent to $172.4 billion. A substantial part of this year’s increase can be attributed to the growth of a few specific categories driven by female consumers such as cosmetics and fragrances, jewelry, and flowers and gifts.
Where the Internet used to be dominated by young, white males with high incomes and plenty of education, this is no longer the case. Today’s Internet population more closely resembles the US population as a whole. The average online shopper is in their early 40’s, more likely to be female, earning a slightly lower income, and accessing the Internet in increasing numbers through broadband connections. More than half of Americans now access an always-on connection at home or through work.
While email is still the number one activity for Internet users, activities such as information searching, entertainment, and online buying have grown in increasing numbers.
The
Abbitt Management website allows us to have a vast amount of information available to our clients including availability, pictures, and driving directions
with maps, at just a click of the button. We market our rental properties to civilian and military families all over the world. If clients are out of the area we give them our web address so they can view pictures of our properties right from their home. With our administrative access site we are able to keep our site updated on a daily basis so our clients know right away when a new property has come available. We feel our website allows us to serve our clients more efficiently, no matter how far away they are. We see it as a 24-hour Rental Information Center.
- Shirley Smith, Property Manager, Abbitt Management, Inc.
According to Bay Beyond on the Eastern Shore, the general public needs their experience
to be user friendly and very simple.
- Keep ordering simple and straightforward - have the site walk the customer through step-by-step
- Keep design simple. Be careful when adding pop-ups, animation, large volumes of type.
- Re-fresh your homepage. Don't change it radically (you want your customer to recognize it) - but throw new photos and specials up every week or so.
- Try to show high-quality, clear photos
- A lot of customers use the web site for information, they don't trust online transactions and prefer to call the order in.
- Always try to keep the look fresh and new-even if it means just moving things around.
- Pamela Barefoot, President, Blue Crab Bay Co./Bay Beyond
Lovato Electric is an Italian company started in 1922 that had an Independent North America distributor for over 20 years. This company purchased Lovato parts and sold them in the United States. About 6 years ago, this company made a decision to no longer carry Lovato parts and in fact told their customers that Lovato Electric was no longer in business. This move prompted Lovato set up its first USA operation in 2001.
One of the first things we did was to establish a web site with all needed contact information of how to find Lovato Electric in the United States. This served as a “national yellow pages” which turned out to be some of the best start-up monies spent. While we go to market using a network of manufacturing reps, this ability to find us proved to be invaluable. Our web site also contains technical information on our products as well as online catalog. In addition, our web site has produced many world wide requests which are forwarded to our Italian office for follow-up.
- Richard Alexander, Operations Manager, Lovato Electric
Reliance Staffing has learned three primary lessons during the past several years:
- It takes effort and time to produce a web site that has value for your customers; be prepared to keep it updated, fresh and professional.
- Optimization of your site is as important as the site itself; because if potential customers can’t find you on the web you’re wasting your time.
- Know when in the life cycle of your business to ask for professional help on the creative side of maturing your web site.
- Tom Sarach, Vice President of Operations, Reliance Staffing
The top three lessons Rowena's has learned since being online are:
- A website can be much more "fluid" than a paper catalog. Sales, items, prices can be changed quickly and without the expense of a paper catalog.
- Pay attention to your website. As sales have grown on our site, it's become an invaluable channel for selling Rowena's products.
- It's important that someone from your business place orders with some frequency to view the site through the customer's eyes.
The ease of ordering, problems with registration, etc. come to light that way.
- Joan Place, Business Manager, Rowena's
In 1997 when I assumed the position as Director for the Small Business Development Center of Hampton Roads, Inc. I was told that the Center was “the best kept secret in Hampton Roads”. Having the responsibility for delivering business counseling services to a region encompassing 18 cities and counties with a staff of 5 meant that the region’s small business community was being woefully underserved.
One of my initial goals was to compile enough relevant information and then arrange it in a usable fashion such that anyone with a computer could access quality information about the Center, its activities and initial data such that a small business owner could begin to better understand the “business” aspects of his business.
After its first full year of operations, our website had close to 21,000 visitors and more than 28,000 visits. As of the 31st of May of this year, it had 10,500 visitors and close to 15,000 visits. If the trend continues, there will be more visitors and visits to the site in 2005 as compared to 2004. The Internet has enabled the Center to better serve a demographically and geographically diverse region in a much more effective and efficient manner.
- Jim Carroll, Director, Small Business
Development Center of Hampton Roads, Inc.
Conducting business online for the past seven years has been an educational experience during which the
Smithfield Specialty Foods Group has learned several valuable items of interest as a seller:
We went into the online world thinking that the Internet customer was the same customer when it came to call-in and phone ordering. Over several years we realized that this was not true at all. There really exists two different customers; i.e., the online customer is a "perceived value" customer type and demands more from the seller in the way of more goods for less dollars than the traditional call-in or mail customer. This disrupted our business model to some degree. Second, the online customer is a hurried consumer who does not like to take the time to read policies and procedures (such as in shipping policies). The on-line customer wants to finish the transaction in a fast pace and move on to another task, whereas, the call-in customer is more relaxed and less demanding in a general sense. In addition, the online customer is impatient and is looking for a quick response to email inquiries. Forget the research on our part because whenever an Internet customer calls in to us they want an instant answer and we have found that this is not always easy.
So, in summary, what we have learned is that our customer service staff will always service two different and unique customer types. Have we benefited from going online? In general, yes. However, because of the nature of our business, I think we will always continue to desire the call-in customer to help temper the pace of the Internet hurried customer type. In a cost saving sense, yes, we have saved some on-going costs moving to the Internet, but if the online customer is more demanding, less willing to take the time to read policies and procedures, etc., then are we truly better off? This can be debated further.
- Steve Jordan, Business Manager and E-Commerce Director, Smithfield Specialty Foods Group
Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine’s website was first launched in 2000. Since a major 2001 re-design, traffic has increased tenfold to 2.5 million hits per year. The Web helped transform Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine from a local (Virginia) to an international forensic education resource. Here are the most important things we’ve learned:
- The site metrics you generate, collect and analyze matter much more than the look of the site.
- The real work begins after a site’s initial launch. Allocate time and money for aftercare and continuing development. It’s well worth it.
- Develop your site for human visitors, but also for search engines. We achieve consistent Top 10 rankings just from search engine optimization, which bring us visitors and revenues, which in turn helps us to fulfill our non-profit mission. The search engine results are due to good early choices (no frames, no Flash) and continuing improvement of the site content.
- Linda Carne, Executive Director and COO, Virginia Institute of Forensic Science
Whitley Peanut Factory went live with its website in 1997. It was a learning curve from the beginning to say the least. Immediately we heard positive and negative remarks on everything from the shopping cart to the picture sizes. Four important lessons learned over the last 8 years:
- Always hear what your customers are saying; they're great teachers
- Sales do not come immediately; build relationships and trust with your customers
- Develop a consistent marketing campaign with your e-mail and paper catalog database
- Focus on what you do best and find a niche
- Todd Smith, Vice President, Whitley Peanut Factory
Since about 10% of all our new customers come as a result of referrals from our customers, PenSoft knows it is important to always deliver 100% of what we promise and to stand behind our return policy. Good news travels fast but bad news travels faster. When our customers order our payroll software online they expect it to perform as advertised. We must do everything possible to make the shopping experience a positive one and to earn the customer’s business. 99% of the time our software is exactly what the customer needs. When the results are not as expected, customers deserve to be treated with respect and have the return handled professionally. This performance helps us keep our customer complaints to a minimal level.
Because fraud is so prevalent in today’s high-speed electronic world, our prospective customers use many means to ensure we are a legitimate company prior to ordering our products. To help them in their investigation we make our company’s physical address, telephone number, fax number and email address readily available throughout the website. Prospective customers use this information to call us, check with the Chamber of Commerce, confirm our participation in the BBB OnLine Reliability Program, check our Dun & Bradstreet report, and confirm we have a valid security certificate. All of these avenues are important in helping them feel comfortable with us and to order our products.
- Leroy Newman, President & CEO, PenSoft and VECTEC Chairman
