Some of us remember
a time when shopping was a much more personal experience. We had
close relationships with our baker, banker and the man who delivered
milk to our front doors. These merchants knew our names, our families
and how we liked our goods delivered.
Just as the local store owner made it his business to know his customer,
we must now invest in our online relationships through data collection
and analysis. Websites such as Yahoo! have done this by creating
personalization of content through products like "My Yahoo!". Through
this vehicle, users are able to customize their home page to their
unique content needs (news, entertainment). In exchange, the company
is afforded demographic, psychographic and geographic information,
which will prove invaluable to them later on in the sales cycle.
Many online merchants have collected user data already, yet are
unclear as to how to best facilitate it. Developing the criteria
for collection is key to building relationships with your clients/
users in the long term. As we design the e-commerce web sites of
the future, we must get to know and relate to customers in a more
effective and relevant way. This will allow us to deliver higher
value products and services, better fill our customer's needs, and
in return be rewarded with higher sales volumes and revenues. Going
back to grassroots where the customer was key is the secret to better
business, and the online world is no exception!
