New concepts to refurbish the online store
Most e-commerce sites are approaching their 10th birthday. The standard approach - with left-hand navigation and search, a product catalogue and product detail, cart and checkout - is a tired format. Just like brick-and-mortar stores, Web stores need refurbishing, and retail is the new darling of Web innovation. After all, what major vertical has more to gain from the recent craze in social networks than retail?
Projects are getting funded, action is taking hold, and innovation is being born. Social shopping is not the only new idea - new e-tail concepts are emerging all the time that drive traffic, increase conversion and decrease abandonment while increasing brand loyalty and providing customer feedback directly to merchants. E-commerce is hot and is changing, and retailers are innovating their way through it.
However, newer e-commerce ideas have not been standardized into commercial e-commerce software, but the rapid pace of retail innovation makes retailers nervous to stand by and wait. There is pressure to innovate and grow, but retailers do not want to invest in anything prematurely and upset the golden goose: their current e-commerce sites that run the business.
New e-tail concepts - such as microsites and social shopping - are emerging all the time, and site operators should embrace them, suggests Adam Michelson, the e-commerce practice lead in North America for Optaros.
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