[September 26th, 1998]

See Also   Want A Sticky Website That Sells? Forget Content!   Giving Customers What They Want   Rule Busters Lose   Building Your Web Site's Sales   Abandoned Shopping Carts: Enigma or Sloppy E-Commerce?   The Only Visitor That Counts Is A Repeat Visitor   Three Steps to Get More Customers   Your Web Site - Do It Yourself? or Get Serious!   How To Make Them Buy Now   The Future of E-Commerce Stinks!   Beware Overload   Does Your Site Have Stopping Power?   Online Sales Psychology That Works   And the Broadband Played on, and on...   How Your Web Site Can Learn From Newspapers   Promise Not to Tell   Where's Your Community?   Understanding Your Visitors   The Seven Deadly Web Site Sins   The Good, The Bad and the Ugly - Part 2   The Good, The Bad and the Ugly - Part 1

In last week's column I took a look at some of the factors that I believe can cause a Web store to be unsuccessful. This week, as promised, I'm going to turn my attention to the elements that make up a great Web store.

There are several approaches I could adopt here. I could simply list the converse of the factors I detailed last week, for example good design features as opposed to the poor design features I detailed before. Alternatively, I could give examples of some of the clever features that some of the big-name Web stores have employed. But instead I'd like to focus on a third approach and look at what I believe is the single, unique factor that distinguishes a great Web store from a mediocre one.

So what am I talking about? Yes it's that "P" word again, Personalization.

Now personalization is possibly the most over-used and oft-abused words on the 'Net. In theory, the 'Net provides the marketing community with the ability to tailor their marketing message to match known characteristics of the message's recipient. Today's reality usually falls well short of this, with personalization being limited to the use of cookies to track and recognise returning visitors. Even worse, many merchants restrict their personalization efforts to the use of targeted e-mails.

So why do I think personalization is such an important feature? Let me tell you a story.

He Who Enters Here is But a Stranger Once

There is an open-air museum park in the North of England named Beamish that I often visit with my family. Within the park is a carefully recreated street scene from 1917 that includes many stores from that era. The stores are fully stocked with reproduction goods and staffed by people in period costume.

Whilst wondering through these stores, I used to find myself thinking about what a frustrating shopping experience they must have provided. There was no self-service and every item had to be requested from the storekeeper. And as a child of the supermarket era I could not help imagining – and resenting - the amount of time that this process would take.

Slowly though, I grew to understand the benefits of this shopping model. The storekeeper would know you and your family and be able to select and recommend products based on your needs. Add to this the warm welcome, and of course the latest village gossip, and the shopping experience would become truly rewarding.

For me then, a truly great Web store would combine the strengths of yesterday's and today's shopping models. It would have all the convenience of a supermarket with easy product selection, easy access, convenient opening hours and low prices. And it would combine this with the comfort and caring of the old village store.

This then is the moment that you will expect me to unveil my list of truly great Web stores for you to visit. Only I don't have one. For despite all the time I have spent creating, visiting and reviewing Web stores I have yet to come across one that I could truly classify as being great.

There are many reasons behind this. Some are technical, with the software and bandwidth needed to provide a truly one-to-one shopping experience simply being unavailable today. Others are more to do with our still imperfect knowledge of the best way to implement a Web commerce model.

I'm fully confident that this will all soon change. And that within two years most stores will deliver a fully personalized shopping experience.

However, there are still many things a Web merchant can do today in order to deliver a more personal service to their customers. Many well-funded businesses are already making significant efforts, with CDNow being probably the best example.

Merchants on a smaller budget need not despair though. In many ways smaller stores have an easier task than larger ones. For they can directly mirror the old time village storekeeper and maintain a high degree of personal contact and a high level of service to their customers.

Do you agree with me? I'd love to hear your comments.