Forms Shape Shopping Experience
By Rich Castagna
The funny little bells hanging from the door handle chime and the friendly shopkeeper comes from behind the counter to welcome you.
C'mon in! Now empty your pockets and get to work! We want your business, but first we're going to give you the business. We want to know all there is to know about you—and, hey—where's that credit card number? Quit yer complaining, it'll only take a few minutes to cough up the info. And then, take your time, browse around, and fill up your shopping cart.
If that happened at your local shopping mall, you'd spin on your heels and head for the door—the bells ching-chinging as you made your getaway.
Still, that's what many Web merchants seem to expect. E-commerce marketing campaigns all too often concentrate on getting potential customers to drop in while overlooking the need to make the e-store a friendly and easy place to shop and buy. Marketing efforts don't stop when you get someone to visit your site. Getting them there is only half the job—or maybe even less. Now you have to make them want to hang around, spend money, and come back.
A recent Forrester Research study pointed out that only 2 percent of e-shoppers are turned into e-buyers at most online commerce sites. The study reports that in 1998, a whopping 66 percent of shopping carts were dumped. The carts were simply left brimming with goods because shoppers didn't want to deal with the complexity of filling out forms or other procedures, or they were turned off by the high shipping and handling fees they faced at the end of their shopping sprees.<>
