How can online retailers keep customers coming back? |  |
| March 13th 2001 - With repeat sales from customers becoming more critical for the dotcom survivors, the latest reports from the International eRetail Association (www.eretailnews.com) look at the technology behind customer retention strategies, as well as other online retailing issues. The 2001-1 eRetailNews report considers wish lists as a customer retention tool and looks at some of the leading solution providers in the wish-list tools arena. The report also looks at how eBags is using advanced predictive technology to increase margins. "Even as we have witnessed the consolidation in the online retailing industry, many companies have been focusing on customer retention strategies in the hope of building customer loyalty," says Nigel Fenwick, President of the eRetail Association and BizBrick, a retail technology consulting company. "Wish lists are just one of the tools in a growing array of technologies available to online retailers to increase customer retention. As online consumers mature, facilities such as wish-lists are going to become a service that the experienced shopper will expect to have available. There are even tools available now that allow shoppers to build a wish list that spans multiple online shopping sites, creating what might be termed wish-list portals. I would expect to see major shopping portals such as Yahoo Shopping adopt this kind of wish-list technology before long." The 2001-2eRetailNews report considers online retailing from two alternative perspectives. The first perspective comes from online pure-play drugstore.com's CEO, Peter Neupert. The second comes from phobo.com, a company created by camera retailer Ritz Camera to develop its online retailing operations. The challenge for Ritz Camera, as for many traditional retailers, has been to integrate its online systems with its traditional retail merchandising and fulfillment systems. This report also considers the technology JC Penney is using to integrate online outlet shopping into its mainstream retail website. eRetailNews is the online information service of the International eRetail Association, a global organization for Internet retailers and e-commerce professionals. eRetailNews reports keep members of the eRetail Association up-to-date with strategies, trends and technologies that impact online retailing. The eRetail Report, available online, is published each month in electronic and print formats and distributed to subscribers around the world. | |
