• by Nuri Djavit , May 14, 2009

According to a Marketing Daily article by Sarah Mahoney [May 11], online retail is "bo-ring." Well, I might go a little further; it's uninspired, technically driven, over-analyzed and sterile.

It has become so SEO-driven that almost everything has been reduced to a commodity where price is king and peer review the jester -- is it real? For many, the experience relies on price comparisons from multiple sites and cross-checking reviews to ensure their authenticity and validity.

Mahoney's article details how dissatisfaction with an online retail experience detrimentally affects sales and notes a mere single-point increase in satisfaction nets out a 9% increase in revenues!

There is a polar opposite to regular hype-cycles in this segment of the digital world; shopping sites have become amazingly search engine- optimized, and offer the searcher easy and rapid access to whatever s/he is looking for, buffeted by an overemphasis on predictative analytics. Previously, you bought x -- therefore, you might like y, or: other people who bought y also bought z, etc. etc.

The question is, how effective are these tactics versus the "annoyance" factor? For many -- and especially the casual browser -- there doesn't seem to be much on offer, and the experience is obfuscated by a system that thinks it knows what you need or want and continually wants to ram it down your throat.

In many ways, it reminds me of the Web 15 years or more past, where the entire experience was developed by the IT folks. No strategy, no design, no ergonomic appreciation and no sense of "human" problem solving -- just sites that conform to a technology strategy that, apparently, we must abide to if our stores and products are to be found, not to mention to make our media companies' lives easier.

The heuristic approach that analysis of user behavior data has taken us has left us uninspired, uninterested and unwilling to buy -- at least at your store if you have failed to innovate.

Where we started with the almost completely useless, we surged forward to the comprehensively utilitarian. We have developed shopping sites that are powered by some amazing technology and driven by incredible science. What is surprising is the divide between brand-based sites that focus almost entirely on experience and the current state of play with transactional sites that focus completely on conversion.

The problem is exacerbated in part by a combination of two factors. The first is the economic downturn that, it seems, will maintain an effect on spending in the months to come. The other is the commoditization of many digital production services, namely web design.

There are so many off-the-shelf or hosted solutions for inventory and shopping that offer retailers low-cost access to a presence online and, hopefully, revenue. So less inclination and cheap or even free tools equal "bingo," no? No. Template sites are boring, bad for your brand, and where they might have made you sales before, they will decline to do so in the future.

With the data that is being presented now by folks such as Foresee Results, we are going to see a shift in the digital retail approach. Design for experience will begin to dominate as it does in many industries, and it will and must lead innovation.

As online retail continues to grow, there is an immediate opportunity for brands to stake a bigger claim by building trusted, enjoyable and inspirational experiences driving impulse and, of course, conversion.

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