Resource Interactive's 8th Annual Holiday E-Commerce Watch |
Ranks E-Retailers According To What Women Want
REI and Barnes & Noble Score Highest
COLUMBUS, OHJanuary 17, 2005For the eighth consecutive year, Resource Interactive conducted hundreds of hours of browsing, buying, visiting stores, and interacting with customer service in order to evaluate fifty leading e-commerce sites during the holiday season according to the preferences of the most powerful online purchasing groupwomen. The '04 Holiday E-commerce Watch examines how well e-retailers' web sites and overall multichannel efforts met or missed the top ten digital desires of this influential consumer group.
Among the key findings are:
- REI and Barnes & Noble did the most to satisfy the female digital shopper this past holiday season.
- Pottery Barn, Target, and Williams-Sonoma were the second highest-ranking e-retailers.
- Abercrombie & Fitch, HP Shopping, Kohl's, Neiman Marcus, Radio Shack, Sur La Table, and Gloss scored the lowest on the list, with Gloss in last place. Despite robust holiday sales for some of these retailers, they were graded lower if e-retailing practices that have become de facto standards for the industry weren't in evidence or were in superabundance, and ran counter to women's experiential needs. Such was the case with Neiman Marcus's insistent emails, for example.
- Of the five women's digital desires e-retailers didn't accommodate, "Experience by Proxy" scored the lowest. The only retail categories committed to facilitating third-party reviews and peer opinions on products, especially appealing to women who are inclined to research heavily online before purchasing, are for the most part the same categories that invented the practicetoys, books, and music, though the consumer electronics category is catching on.
- E-commerce sites as a whole are showing the most promise in providing enough relevant information to make their products as "knowable" as possiblethe top-ranking digital wantby providing virtualization technology, zoom and pan options, better copy, and more useful and usable information design and architecture.
- Browsing online isn't as easy or as pleasurable as it should be, given the 58% of shoppers who intended to gather ideas and inspiration before they got out their credit cards during the holidays, according to Jupiter Research.
Research for the '04 Holiday E-commerce Watch included data from over 4000 online survey participants and 40 videotaped Shop & TellSM conversations, and a blog, www.mooneythinks.com, launched during the holiday season in order to discuss the e-commerce highs and lows as they were occurring. Featuring the voice of President Kelly Mooney, a recognized digital marketing and customer experience spokesperson, and the observations of the Resource Interactive research and strategy team, www.mooneythinks.com elicited incisive commentary from fellow bloggers, and newsworthy items became part of the study.
About Resource Interactive
Resource Interactive is a top-ranked interactive marketing and technology firm that helps the world's leading companies plan, create, build, assess, and optimize the digital experience of their customers and other constituencies. We've helped companies such as Victoria's Secret, Hewlett-Packard, Reebok, Bath & Bodyworks, Nationwide, Target, Apple, Burton Snowboards, Limited Brands, Endo Pharmaceuticals, and Restoration Hardware use their online channels to drive sales, reduce costs, create community, and deepen brand loyalty. Resource Interactive's award-winning creativity was featured more than any other firm's in Communication Arts' ten-year Interactive Annual.
Resource Interactive's qualitative research findings and interactive strategies assist e-merchants in designing online experiences for their most valuable consumer groups while lowering the opportunity costs of not designing for women. The eighth annual '04 Holiday E-commerce Watch is available for free on www.resource.com.
CONTACT:
Dr. Nita Rollins
Executive Director, Marketing
nrollins@resource.com