I recently purchased a small video camcorder from Amazon. You would think this to be nothing unusual, so why bother writing about it. Well, I think there are lessons in e-commerce that we can all learn about what they do and how they do it.

Amazing customer service

Ordering on Amazon is a real breeze. The site knows me whenever I’m there and it offers me 1 click ordering. When I ordered my camcorder there was an offer of a free accessory with the purchase. I selected an item and added it, but at the time of checkout it appeared I was going to be charged for it, so I deleted it from my shopping cart. As you can imagine I was a bit disappointed.

I wrote to Amazon and explained what had happened. They were really good and I promptly received a response asking me tell them what the accessory was and they would send it out. There was no questions asked. It was immediate, problem sorted.

But here’s the really amazing part of the story, the camcorder that I ordered on Sunday afternoon, arrived on my desk on Thursday afternoon - half a world away!

What makes e-Commerce amazing

There’s a real proliferation of e-commerce sites around and most are really bad. The reason why they are bad, in my opinion, is because there’s no little thought about:

• the online customer experience
• the back-end processes required to run an online business

It is these things that Amazon excel at, and which other online businesses should emulate as appropriate.

The online customer experience

There is a lot more than just the plain old twaddle you get from web developers and designers who always bring out the same old mantra about usability, without being able to successfully define what they mean. Yes, easy and intuitive use has a lot to do with it, but there is a whole lot more to it than that. It’s about having a ‘psychological integration’ with the user, understanding the triggers that cause a person to buy, and understanding what needs to be done to encourage and support the buying decision.

Once you’ve got their money there is also, it’s also about how you ‘farm’ your customers so they become second time buyers (can be a bit hard when you’re selling only one product!). This means having a system in place whereby you can communicate and keep contact.

Back-end processes

I talk to many businesses wanting to set up a shopping cart or e-commerce component to their business, but many have not thought through whats actually required. Basic questions like, “what happens when you get an order”, or “how do you manage returns” are significant issues that need to be thought through and integrated into the business. Another significant issue is what is the staffing implications for such a venture.

All of these issues must be considered and have developed systems and processes, which ideally should integrate with the back-end functionalities of the website.

e-Commerce done well has a cost
- and a huge potential reward

I was talking with a developer who I trust about e-commerce.  We both agreed that it is a misconception that a e-commerce website is cheap. There is a cost for things to be done properly, and lets face it, you generally only have one opportunity to get it right when you’re selling online.

Don’t get me wrong, doing things online is, in most cases, is a lot less expensive than doing it offline, but it can still cost. I like to look at it in a comparative way. If you were setting up a shop in a mall you would be spending big dollars in order to get a slice of the action, and these costs would be ongoing. The same analogy should be applied to doing things online (after all it is a business channel). You must give it the investment it deserves if you want to make a good chance of it, especially when you consider the rewards online are potentially much greater.

I’ve been thinking about this one for a while lately. And let’s get this right from the start. A lot can be achieved with a website in terms of lead generation and customer fulfillment. But, there are some things that the internet is not the best medium for. It seems strange that I should ever be saying these things, but in my opinion, you’ve got to use a variety of delivery mechanisms to keep your customers.

I have often found that many web developers are strong advocates for email newsletters. And, many organisations have adopted the email newsletter like a duck to water. Invariably the reason why they have adopted this mechanism of delivery is because of cost. It’s much cheaper to send out a email newsletter than it is to print and deliver through the standard mail system.

The question that needs to be asked is whether there is a downside to this. Well, I for one think so. I know from my own experience that email newsletters are not always read, and this is not because the content isn’t good, it’s because people are busy and looking backwards and forwards in their email box. Therefore if there is not something right at the top that doesn’t hit your reader right between the eyes, it won’t be read at that moment, and as the day progresses will become less and less f a priority.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying forget the email newsletter. There really is a place for it. It is a mechanism to quickly, efficiently and economically deliver a message to your customers. But if you want to be remembered by your customers I think you need to vary the delivery to include a paper based version of your newsletter every now and then. Yeah, it’s going to cost you more, but there’s one thing that you can be certain about, there’s a greater chance that it’s going to be read and kept by your customer. What value do you place on that?

The tale of two chambers

I’d also like to share with you my experience as a recipient of newsletters. I’m a member of two chambers of commerce. One has adopted a 100% policy of delivering all their newsletters by email. Guess what? I hardly read it and I haven’t been to any of their functions in the last year or so. It also sends me a monthly PDF newsletter and I can’t recall opening one. I’m now wondering what value this chamber really offers me and my business.

The other chamber that I belong to still sends me things by email, but it also sends me its monthly newsletter in printed form. Guess what? I read it, I may not read it immediately, but it gets read.

If you think about what’s going on here, one chamber of commerce has cut its cost by sending things electronically, and if I’m anything to go by has probably suffered lower participation (and, as a consequence will suffer lower membership). The other had continued to use both email and printed communications and has a higher participation rate.

What’s the big lesson

The Internet is a really tremedous medium for generating leads, ordering, delivering content, getting information and customer fulfillment (to name a few). But the internet is still a fairly sterile environment and doesn’t fulfill all the requirements building and maintaining relationships with customers. So as much as possible vary the delivery mechanism and use printed newsletter every now and then.

The internet has not replaced other mediums of comunication, it has just added another channel for us to use to the best effect.