A 'Hop, Skip And A Jump' Away From Great Ecommerce

A recent survey by IBM into shopper purchasing habits has shown consumers are making greater use of the range of shopping channels available to them, leading to a phenomenon known as 'channel-hopping'.

75% of the consumers questioned in the survey stated they prefer to use the internet to research their purchases beforehand. This 'before sale' behaviour presents e-tailers with new problems and opportunities to address: the opportunity to poach customers away from their rivals, and the problem of stopping the same thing from happening to them.

The importance of getting your ecommerce solution right the first time can't be overstated: consumers are more likely to switch retailers in the process of channel-hopping than at any other time. One of the best things you can do is to ensure your sales checkout is completely hassle-free, so the customers you do entice towards a sale don't abandon it half-way through.

On the subject of hassle-free checkouts, an interesting discussion has been unfolding on Webmaster World about the various dos and don'ts of setting up an ecommerce channel. Recurring complaints revolve around checkouts being too crammed with visuals and copy; customers having to re-enter all their data if they miss out an information field and a general lack of understanding about what to do in the case of a credit card decline.

Take a good, long look at your own checkout: would you be happy to wait in line to make a purchase here, or would you channel-hop to someone else's queue? If your site suffers from any of the things mentioned above, you're probably losing valuable customers.