BT Wholesale

INDUSTRY NEWS


30 May 2008

Online Organisations 'Fail to Capitalise on Web 2.0'


Most retail enterprises operating online have yet to take advantage of web 2.0 technologies in order to make customers' shopping experiences more enjoyable, new research has indicated.

According to Gartner, some enterprises are beginning to see drops in their sales as customers become increasingly frustrated with rigid web-based shopping experiences. It urged more firms to deploy web 2.0 technologies to improve usability, interactivity and navigation.

The analyst found that the most successful e-commerce organisations have invested heavily in upgrading their websites, with many improvements coming from the Ajax platform, which allows for the simple creation of interactive web applications.

Gene Alvarez, research vice president at Gartner, said: "Many people say that they don't enjoy shopping on the web because it's often difficult to find products they want, prices and shipping costs can be hard to calculated, and check-out often is frustrating and time-consuming."

Gartner recommended that online retail enterprises deploy web 2.0 to pre-cache data for a smoother shopping experience, create single-page applications, improve interface controls and keep data such as totals and prices refreshed.

According to In-Stat, younger consumers are leading the adoption of mobile web 2.0 using services such as mobile-phone based social networking, multimedia sharing and shopping. It is estimated that there will be 975 global mobile social network users by 2012, up from 525 million today.

© 2006 Adfero Ltd.

MORE INDUSTRY NEWS

  • UPDATED 04/06/2008

    Google Launches 'Site Search'

    Web giant version has launched a re-branded version of Google Custom Search Business Edition, .....

  • UPDATED 03/06/2008

    Mobile Working to Boost UK GDP

    Technological advances facilitating remote and mobile working practices are benefitting the national economy by .....