Paul Rouke - Usability Professional

You don’t need to be a Wall Street trader to work out we’re going through a bit of an economic sticky patch. Businesses and consumers alike are finding it hard in the current climate. So how can you make your online business work as hard as it can in these times of woe?

Firstly, turn down the panic button; online spending is on the increase (sales in the first quarter of 2008 are up 50% on last year, NMA 15.05.08), so there’s currently a good opportunity to earn your keep, but you’re going to have to work extra hard for your share, as competition online is hotting up.

Here’s my 3 primers on how to do it

1. . Position your business for long term growth and opportunity. Many businesses go the wrong way by not taking advantage of opportunities they would have otherwise snapped up. Don’t forget things can only get better! You’ll need to be ready to swoop in and pick up all the business your competitors won’t be prepared for after this period by pushing forward with your business growth instead of shying away.
2. Invest but wisely. There’s no point simply having an e-commerce website unless it is efficiently converting your traffic. Ensuring the usability of the site is at its best so that consumers have a problem-free shopping journey is a must. But spending your pennies to make improvements can seem like a hard call in times like these. That why here at PRWD we drive cost savings by using the open source web frameworks built with PHP. Investing in web improvements using such technology will save you money whilst providing substantial return on your investment, if a User Centered Design approach is used.
3. Take advantage of marketing you business online for free by using social networking and blogs to stimulate interest in the online world. According to research by Hitwise (Hopkins, 2006), social networking site MySpace is responsible for more Traffic flow into the HMV.co.uk music portal than both the Yahoo and MSN UK search engines.

Tags: E-commerce, industry insight, retailing