The 2006 Holiday Season is Upon Us

Prompted by a recent discussion about when e-tailers really need to roll out their wares for the holiday shopping spree, I came across a press release by Forrester Research hyping their US eCommerce Outlook For Q4 2006.

While I am not surprised that the Internet sees rapid growth of e-commerce, I am still amazed that online stores fail to understand and execute on the essentials: providing a smooth, seemless, and pleasant shopping experience, including

• Making product display and organization straightforward and appealing
• Providing a trust-inspiring checkout process that anticipates a shopper’s potential concerns
• Guaranteeing a fast order fullfillment process, and correctly estimating time for delivery
• Making return of merchandise as easy as possible

Here’s some of the key tidbits from the Forrester study:

“US online retail sales this holiday season will reach $27 billion, a 23 percent increase over last year. (…) Almost one-fifth of the nearly 4,000 consumers surveyed say that the Internet will be the place where they shop the most during the holidays.”

“Part of the overall pessimism toward online shopping includes skepticism of the product fulfillment process. Fifteen percent of consumers said they received orders late last year. Returns are also a sore spot with half of consumers finding the process of returning items to be a hassle (…)”

“While price-driven consumers dominated the landscape of online retail for years, Forrester sees a more lucrative value proposition for online retail in making life easier for time-starved consumers.”

“By emphasizing convenience of returns during the selling process and then exceeding customer expectations for package delivery, retailers can not only reap good sales this year, but also positively influence consumer confidence to shop online in the future.”

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