Coming back to the world of today, we realize that for the most part, this kind of very personal shopping experience and customer service has been lost in these days of anonymous hyper-markets. Personal relationships with retailers are exceptions. Retailers cannot tailor offers to specific customers and their needs anymore. To make up for this lack of focus and personalization, retailers undertake huge amounts of advertising.
However, information about customer's needs and preferences does exist. If someone buys diapers in a supermarket one week, it's highly likely that the same person will be interested in a special offer for baby food the next. Unfortunately, this information is not available in a usable, digitized format; therefore, it's very difficult for the retailer to make use of it. Because the retailer cannot attribute diaper purchases to any specific shopper, he advertises the baby food offer in the regional newspaper—even though at least ninety percent of the people who read the ad won't buy baby food, regardless of the price or the amount of advertising. Why not? Because they don't have a baby!
On-line retail can be a retailer's dream come true: because of the wealth of information available in a digitized format about that customer, online retail enables the retailer to tailor the offered products or services to a specific customer's needs. As the Internet provides new and different opportunities to do business and to service customers, the rules of the retail game are changing dramatically.
This article focuses on the success factors for on-line retail and on the possible website features that can support these success factors.
Success factors in on-line retail
When you get ready to open a virtual store, you have to t ...