Customer-Oriented
A successful e-commerce organization must also provide an enjoyable and rewarding
experience to its customers. Many factors go into making this possible. Such factors
include:
Providing value to customers. Vendors can achieve this by offering a product or
product-line that attracts potential customers at a competitive price, as in non-electronic
commerce.
Providing service and performance. Offering a responsive, user-friendly purchasing
experience, just like a flesh-and-blood retailer, may go some way to achieving these
goals.
Providing an incentive for customers to buy and to return. Sales promotions to this
end can involve coupons, special offers, and discounts. Cross-linked websites and
advertising affiliate programs can also help.
Providing personal attention. Personalized web sites, purchase suggestions, and
personalized special offers may go some of the way to substituting for the face-to-face
human interaction found at a traditional point of sale.
Providing a sense of community. Chat rooms, discussion boards, soliciting customer
input and loyalty programs (sometimes called affinity programs) can help in this
respect.
Owning the customer's total experience. E-tailers foster this by treating any contacts
with a customer as part of a total experience, an experience that becomes synonymous
with the brand.
Letting customers help themselves. Provision of a self-serve site, easy to use without
assistance, can help in this respect. This implies that all product information
is available, cross-sell information, advise for product alternatives, and supplies
& accessory selectors
. Helping customers do their job of consuming. E-tailers and online shopping directories
can provide such help through ample comparative information and good search facilities.
Provision of component information and safety-and-health comments may assist e-tailers
to define the customers' job.