Online retailers have been effective in driving traffic to their sites, but spend far too little attention to converting browsers to first-time buyers, according to a recent report on online retail strategies.
In a survey of 75 top online merchants, who collectively accounted for 60 percent of U.S. Web retail sales in ’97, Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research found that concerns over the security of credit card transactions was the number one deterrent to more people making online purchases, followed by poorly designed sites and insufficient product selection.
CompSource certainly picked the right product category in which to compete. Sales of computer hardware and software accounted for $863 million in 1997, nearly as much as the combined totals for the next two categories, travel and entertainment. On the other hand, sales of travel-related goods are expected to surge into the top spot as early as 2000.
But Forrester’s analysts maintain that the biggest issue for success in online retailing is converting cyberbrowsers to first-time buyers. And yet, 70 percent of those it surveyed didn’t pay any attention to introducing first-time buyer promotions.
Forrester concludes Internet retailers are good at generating traffic, but once lookers arrive, merchants are less <$t-5.5>successful converting them into buyers.