RETAILING

Retailing

Retailing

Only if you make a point to refuse to read the financial newspapers, or the business section of a local or national newspaper, would you be reading for the first time that window coverings are being sold via the Internet. There are companies whose sole purpose is to sell some of the same window coverings you are selling with the promise of having quick delivery, no need to drive to the store, or to endure uneducated employees. Their only disadvantage is the fact the customer has to wait a few days for delivery.

E-tailing (less frequently: etailing) is the selling of retail goods on the Internet. Short for "electronic retailing," and used in Internet discussions as early as 1995, the term seems an almost inevitable addition to e-mail, e-business, and e-commerce. E-tailing is synonymous with business-to-consumer (B2C) transaction.

E-tailing began to work for some major corporations and smaller entrepreneurs as early as 1997 when Dell Computer reported multimillion dollar orders taken at its Web site. The success of Amazon.com hastened the arrival of Barnes and Noble's e-tail site. Concerns about secure order-taking receded. 1997 was also the year in which Auto-by-Tel reported that they had sold their millionth car over the Web, and CommerceNet/Nielsen Media reported that 10 million people had made purchases on the Web. Jupiter research predicted that e-tailing would grow to $37 billion by 2002. A successful webstore is not just a good looking website with dynamic technical features, listed in many search engines.[12] In addition to disseminating information, it is about building relationships and making money.

Businesses often attempt to adopt online shopping techniques without understanding them and/or without a sound business model, producing webstores that support the organizations' culture and brand name without satisfying consumer's expectations. User-centered design is critical. Understanding the customer's wants and needs and living up to promises gives the customer a reason to come back and meeting their expectations gives them a reason to stay. It is important that the website communicates to the customer that the company cares about them.[12]

Customer needs and expectations are not the same for all customers. Age, gender, experience, culture are all important factors. For example, Japanese cultural norms may lead users there to feel privacy is especially critical on shopping sites and emotional involvement is highly important on financial pensions sites.[8] Users with more online experience focus more on the variables that directly influence the task, while novice users focus on understanding the information.[13]

To increase online purchases, businesses must expend significant time and money to define, design, develop, test, implement, and maintain the webstore.[12] It is easier to lose a customer then to gain one and even "top-rated" sites will not succeed if the organization fails to practice common etiquette such as returning e-mails in a timely fashion, notifying customers of problems, being honest, and being good stewards of the customers' data.[12] Because it is important to to eliminate mistakes and be more appealing to online shoppers, many webshop designers study research on consumer ...