MediaBuyerPlanner: Online retailers plan to invest heavily in home page redesigns and in the improvement of product detail pages, according to a new survey from Shop.org and Forrester Research that polled 150 retailers.
Eighty-eight percent of retailers plan to improve product detail pages, with 80 percent adding alternative images and 72 percent adding lifestyle images, writes MediaPost. Companies are also investing in features that will engage visitors and keep them coming back, with 63 percent adding customer ratings and reviews, 33 percent adding more live chats and 53 percent improving the checkout process.
Customer acquisition tactics were the top priority in 2006, snaring 51 percent of marketing dollars. An additional 24 percent was spent on online customer retention programs. Eighteen percent was spent on driving cross-channel sales, up from 13 percent the previous year; 66 percent of respondents measure the success of the catalog by how much it increases web sales.
Email was cited as the cheapest, most effective tool for customer retention by 73 percent of respondents.
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