A recent review of ecommerce developments highlights that what happens behind the scenes is as important as improvements to the visual ‘look and feel’.

Seasoned online consumers will know what they expect to see and if the website does not deliver rapid progress to a product, price and enough detail to make a purchase they will be away to another site that does the job better.

The features that define the success of an ecommerce website are becoming more subtle and less obvious to the visiting consumer. By using the trail of data that is created every time someone comes to your website you can deliver a more tailored experience for their subsequent visits.  Intelligent use of this data will enhance the consumer experience, and lead to increased sales conversion. Good ecommerce platforms have inbuilt routines to personalise the customer experience, including the email follow-up of abandoned baskets – which can recover around 10% of potentially lost sales.

Here are some tips for ecommerce website owners just back and refreshed from the summer holidays;

• Take some time to understand and review your existing website data – are you making the most of the knowledge you gather?
• Check that you are using all the options in your existing ecommerce platform in order to improve the customer experience
• Take a look at your main competitors’ websites - benchmark your site against them (remember, your potential customers may well be visiting their sites as well)
• If you are falling behind and you do not have the options to improve within your current systems, it’s time to review your ecommerce arrangements