Making Users Buy Online – The Importance of Building Online Trust

By Martin Rosenmejer,
User Experience Research Consultant
at fhios.
With online sales rising to 9.8% of the total retail sales in the UK in 2008* and 12.6% of businesses selling online (Office of National Statistics), the role of company websites is still enhancing often becoming a central part of the offered customer experience.
In order to make people purchasing [...]

Poor weather extends the internet Christmas shopping boom

There still seems to be no sign of the festive online shopping boom tailing off, with figures from John Lewis and price comparison service InvisibleHand both indicating on-going growth in the market.
John Lewis’ latest weekly trading figures show that online sales were up by over 50% on a year ago. “It is in weeks such [...]

Shoppers spend 94% more per order online in 2009

Coremetrics Benchmark Survey of 150 top online retailers in the UK reveals online shoppers favour the end of the week and are ordering more goods with a higher average item value.

The average online order has increased 54 percent since 2007.  However, the effect of the recession on consumer spending last year is clearly visible [...]

Customer Satisfaction for the Top 40 UK Online Retailers Christmas 2009

Company Name
Satisfaction 2008
Satisfaction 2009
Point change
% change

Amazon U.K.
78
83
5
6.4%

Play.com
78
79
1
1.3%

QVC U.K.
70
78
8
11.4%

John Lewis
68
77
9
13.2%

M & M Direct
67
76
9
13.4%

Apple.com U.K.
71
76
5
7.0%

Boots
68
75
7
10.3%

HMV
69
75
6
8.7%

eBay U.K.
72
75
3
4.2%

Waterstone’s
68
74
6
8.8%

ASOS
70
74
4
5.7%

Ebuyer
70
74
4
5.7%

Screwfix Direct
71
74
3
4.2%

New Look
NA
73
NA
NA

Sainsbury’s
NA
73
NA
NA

Marks & Spencer
68
73
5
7.4%

ASDA (Wal-Mart)
69
73
4
5.8%

Argos
70
73
3
4.3%

Tesco Direct
65
72
7
10.8%

Dell U.K.
NA
71
NA
NA

Debenhams
61
71
10
16.4%

Next
66
71
5
7.6%

IKEA
NA
70
NA
NA

Topshop
NA
70
NA
NA

WHSmith
62
70
8
12.9%

River Island
63
69
6
9.5%

O2 Shop
NA
68
NA
NA

The Orange Shop
60
68
8
13.3%

Comet
61
68
7
11.5%

Halfords
NA
67
NA
NA

Homebase
NA
67
NA
NA

PC World
60
67
7
11.7%

Kays
61
67
6
9.8%

La Redoute
62
67
5
8.1%

Dixons
NA
66
NA
NA

Currys
60
66
6
10.0%

Freemans
62
66
4
6.5%

Littlewoods
62
66
4
6.5%

Ticketmaster U.K.
NA
65
NA
NA

B&Q
60
65
5
8.3%

Top 20 retail sites: UK

Search terms ranked by visits for week ending 14th Nov 2009

eBay UK – 19.05%
Amazon UK – 6.25%
Argos – 2.28%
Play.com – 1.87%
Marks & Spencer – 1.13%
Tesco.com – 1.07%
Tesco Direct – 0.91%
Amazon.com – 0.89%
eBay.com – 0.86%
John Lewis – 0.82%
Next – 0.76%
HotUKDeals – 0.64%
Sainsbury’s – 0.6%
Gumtree – 0.55%
ASOS – 54%
GAME – 54%
HMV.com – 52%
Tesco entertainment – 52%
ASDA – [...]

Disney to launch online alternative to Blu-Ray and DVD

By Andrew Horsfall,
Marketing Assistant
at fhios.
Disney has unveiled plans for its online storage service, called ‘Keychest’, that will give users access to the studio’s movies and TV shows online, offering an alternative to DVDs and Blu-rays.
Using Keychest, consumers would purchase access rights to a film or TV show, rather than have physical ownership of material [...]

Customer Satisfaction survey for Online Retail Christmas 2009

By Andrew Horsfall,
Marketing Assistant
at fhios.
This years’ customer satisfaction survey from ForeSee Results research unveiled that customer satisfaction for the top retailers had increased by 6% from last year. All of the 40 online retail websites in the study saw some sort of increase.
The Index measured four high level factors that affect overall customer satisfaction:

Functionality
Price
Merchandise
Content

Over [...]

Shoppers spend 94% more per order online in 2009

A Coremetrics Benchmark Survey of 150 top online retailers in the UK reveals online shoppers favour the end of the week and are ordering more goods with a higher average item value.
The average online order has increased 54 percent since 2007.  However, the effect of the recession on consumer spending last year is clearly visible [...]

UK retailers maintain strong site availability and response times on Cyber Monday

Significant improvements in the reliability of top online retailers’ websites continued again this Monday, as shoppers descended on the internet for a £350 million Christmas shopping bonanza.
Of the thirteen in Keynote Systems‘ basket of top retailers, eight managed 100% site availability — Argos, Bhs, Debenhams, Hamleys, House of Fraser, Play, Selfridges and Tesco Direct. Amazon [...]

Top U.K. Retail Sites

Across the month of November, average weekly visits to online retail sites grew 35% in the UK compared to the typical shopping week from the prior two months. Of the top 5 online retailers as ranked by average weekly visits across the month of November, Play.com sites experienced the largest growth on the base period [...]