A survey in the US has found that online shoppers evaluate e-commerce companies more by what they do offline than online.
Research company Miller-Williams says e-commerce customers feel that over 80% of their decisions to purchase or not resides in issues beyond their online experience. These include the brand performance, financial longevity, strategic direction and bricks interaction of e-commerce companies.
The research was based on interviews with 976 active customers of various e-commerce companies including Amazon.com, AOL-Time Warner, BN.com, eBay, Monster.com and Yahoo. Current customers, defected customers and prospects were also asked to describe their ideal e-commerce company.
All online aspects of what customers experience makes up only 15% of decision-making, the survey found.
Customers recognise the value of a good performing brand and today`s top e-commerce companies are clearly meeting their expectations. Organisations should continue, or increase if warranted, their investments in traditional advertising campaigns, the findings suggest.
Amazon.com was seen as the premier e-commerce company, having translated its brand performance into value on the bricks interaction. The research shows their value here is essentially the equivalent of a retail store, something that customers don`t see in the other e-commerce companies.
Customers said e-commerce companies needed to better demonstrate their financial security. Most said a company`s aggressiveness and ability to seize new markets would increase its financial longevity.
After analysing 27 brick-and-mortar and e-commerce market-leading companies, customers ranked Oracle number one in terms of financial security, outperforming others such as AOL-Time Warner, Dell Computer and General Motors.
While the US Census Bureau reports e-commerce revenues at $9.85 billion for the first quarter of this year, the Miller-Williams research shows that a large portion of untapped customer value remains for industry growth.
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