Internet Marketing Assignment Essay

E-Commerce describes both problem to consumer transactions that think bespeak secernly or entirely online and is non limited to the purchase of sensible w argons from a web locate peakhough that does refer up a see comp whizznt of some e-commerce agate linees. Some services or crossroads argon sold purely online while other companies whitethorn scram physical stores or headquarters in loanition to their online presence.E-Business describes any(prenominal)(prenominal) craft to business transactions that take place online. For font a weathervane Design confederacy often doesnt betray products directly to consumers, precisely instead bring forths webwebsites as a service for other companies, which ordain in turn be mappingd to shell step forward products or services to consumers.The lucre has revolutionised the c commemorateing companies do business. The shift in the focal appoint peck cuckold has had a big impact on both the micro environments the exclusive companies and their direct stakeholders and the macro environment politics, economy and society as a whole. The death of the senior high school street has been an obvious effect of these changes with more than than(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) stores completion muckle.Those who fail to keep up with these changes entrust be more plausibly to touch the negative consequences as was the case with HMV and Blockbuster, who were forced into administration as competing online services excessivelyk each(prenominal) for allwhere their market sh atomic number 18.For those who do keep up how ever, business is booming. iTunes, Amazon and Netflix atomic number 18 Blockbusters and HMVs online equivalents and whole cardinal befuddle billions of intentionrs from all around the globe.While the pith of jobs available in retail positions has been on a steady decline all over juvenile years the demand for skilled turners in the IT sector is bigger th an ever so a lot so that there is a shortage of behinddidates and galore( placementnominal) roles go unfilled. A insure issued by the government regarding the UK cyber hostage strategy highlighted that the current and future ICT and cyber security skills gap was a key dispute in implementing the strategy. ( issue Audit Office, 2013)To instituteress this problem the education system call for to be changed, as of 2014 children as young as 5 leave behind be l earning advanced computing as bankrupt of the curriculum. high Education institutes will in like manner handlely deport to reassess their physical body material to accommodate the natural generation of students who will be leave school with more in depth knowledge of computer systems and packet development.Consumers addition some bene touchs from e-commerce, they now down the choice of shopping from an more or less(prenominal) unlimited choice of companies from all around the instauration. Comparing prices and realizeing prohibited what other clients thought of a product is in addition made oftentimes easier by the net profit.The change in pluralitys shopping garbs has changed the means companies referise, huge handleing bud runs for prime- metre TV commercials argon no longer the and way to get noticed and the potential audience is now global.Elements of internet Marketing conventional styles of ad such as TV, newspapers, magazines, billboards etc are based on an unsloped luck model. A base is interrupted by TV advert symphony is interrupted by a radio advert the flow of an hold is interrupted by a magazine article, etc. This style of ad persisted and unagitated exists today in numerous places still more and more companies are realising that demanding a customers attention in this way online does not yield levelheaded replys. Some elements of internet market are examined below.Search EnginesOrganic try results account for a signifi nookyt parcel of i nternet calling. (The actual number is hard to sum for terra firmas discussed in the Internet Marketing Tools subdivision on page 11). Regardless of the ad hocs it is widely judge that original attempt results are where a huge amount of a websites projectants come from. Search Engine Optimisation is therefore a life-sustaining part of a market strategy. remunerative advertising through appear engines may also be considered for extra exposure tho is no substitute for a properly designed site structure and key word rich, quality national for expect engine robots to crawl.Often good practices for SEO also embody good practices for UX design and accessibility humans and robots equal prefer sites that are easy to navigate and take aim well-structured content that trifles use of headings and sections to take a shit it easy to read as well as alt tags on all characters that give a clear description of what that image depicts with internal and external refers within th e content when the con school text is applicable.In the early days of search engines keywords were all that mattered, so it was easy to stray high on Google simply by stuffing as galore( berthnominal) keywords into the headers meta-tag as possible. Key word meta-tags are now obsolete and search engines soak up become much more sophisticated. (Google, 2011) As well as crawling site structure and content to determine the quality of a page search-bots also judge the integrity of a page. They do this by keeping track of how many external sources colligate to it at counterbalance, this advance link farms (a play along would feed for a web traffic boosting service, which would grind out their sites URL over a ne twork of dummy sites set up purely for the purpose of creating relate) as search engines evolved this method is no longer as effective.Google now has algorithms that also measure the integrity of the sites that the links come from to provide users with more perti nent results. rank high on Google for real keywords is a long cover, a new website has to build up a spirit, get their content divided and linked by others in an organic way by having an article appointd on brotherly media for casing not through a link farm. Google strives for excellence by constantly improving its algorithms, they engageiness to turn their visitors relevant search results so passel continue to use their service and merchandise strategies wee-wee to adapt if they want to keep up.Organic search results are a improve poser of selling that doesnt feel ilk marketing to potential customers. They are using search engines to prevail something specific the hard work has been d superstar for you, they already want to deprave something or have some sort of problem solved and if good practices for SEO have been implemented theres no intellectual a website they recuperate through Google would be irrelevant and not what theyre construeing for, Googles a lgorithms make sure of that and there are no shortcuts or cheats to burlesque them. A site filled with links and crammed with keywords for the sole purpose of acquire more populate to visit your website achieves nothing, if they tear on it and it isnt relevant to what theyre looking for they wont just buy your product or service anyway, they will leave. The amount of time good deal lapse on a website and the actions they take there (signing up for a newsletter, reservation a purchase, etc) is all introduce by Google and utilize as part of the algorithms to determine the quality and integrity of a website.Banner AdsBanner Advertisements are based on the classic interruption model and the vast legal age of internet users dont like them and a huge theatrical role use bundle package to block them wholly. This has been ascertain multiple times over the years by a number of different researchers. maven drive conducted by the Norman Neilson Group, experts in Usability Heuristics, found that most users will completely ignore anything that looks like an advert even up when its not and even when it provides them with the education they are looking for.In 1 study participants were asked to find the population of the United States using the U.S Census Bureau website which was presented in large-mouthed red numbers on the in force(p) hand side of the space page. 86% of users ignored it because it looked like an advert, it was bold and placed in the spot that adverts are traditionally placed so was disregarded, despite containing the exact randomness they were looking for. The pie chart shows an overall representation of the behaviour exhibited by users on the site.In a different study eye bring in software and real time observation was utilise to measure exactly where people look on a website and how they interact with its various elements. In epitome the study found that Users rarely look at display advertisements on websites. Of the 4 de sign elements that do attract a few ad fixations, unitary is unethical and crops the value of advertising networks. (Nielsen, 2007) The four design elements in question that users have been found to give their attention are text, faces, sectionalization/other body parts (sex sells still rings square for internet marketing) and obnoxious, intruding banner advertisements.Banners that sit and do nothing are considered a more ethical way of advertising, unfortunately studies show that ones that make sounds, pop up into the users line of sight or are gay attract more attention. However, just because a person is more probably to look at an obnoxious ad, that doesnt mean they will heel on it and be prepared to hand over requital details. I feel Banner Blindness should be taken more hard than it currently is and companies ask to find alternative methods of advertising, as this form has been prove to be ineffective for well over a decade now. (The corresponding study with the e qual decisions was first conducted by the NN group in 1997.) social Medianetworksites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc are no longer just the dry land of a young tech-savvy audience. Data collected from a survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International found that mixer Media usage has increase by 800% since 2005. In contrast, TV viewership has decreased by 50% in the same time frame. The graph below shows the findings, broken down by age Social media marketing place connect businesses with one million millions of potential customers. not only that, it keep be through for unornamented unlike television receiver and other traditional methods of advertising that require a substantial coronation up front with virtually no guarantee of a contribute. Paid advertising on Social Media ignore also be clean-cut to target a specific audience. The ads tailful be set up to only display to those who will be the most likely to pawl on it. A b ar advertising for freshers calendar week for example could target their ads at students who were over 18 and living in the local area.Strategic nubThe use of strategic content ties in with SEO and Social Media marketing it involves creating content (as a blog for example) that is useful or kindle in some way (as well as relevant to the business) to come along visitors to come to a website. From an SEO standpoint this will make the site rich with content, keywords and links which can result in higher(prenominal) rankings on search engines which bureau visitors are more likely to find your website. For example a lodge specialising in web design may have a design and technology blog providing expert reading and up to date news on technology, or perhaps a section featuring tutorials and templates. Providing free content thats similar to what youre trying to sell can seem counter intuitive but it supports cultivate trust, it provides yard that the attach to knows what its talki ng close to and gives potential customers an overview of how things are done. Content can be shared around social media, and if its interesting or informative people may share it with their friends which results in more exposure.PartnershipsForming mutually beneficial deals with other companies and cross promoting each other can widen the audience they both seduce. Youtube and Twitch for example are used as platforms for gamers and game publishers to work together publishers provide high form content creators with early access to games, which they broadcast to all their fans. The content creators gain more views and in return more people get to give away near the game and see how it plays devising them more likely to buy it. This kind of promotion doesnt cost either party any money but is beneficial and profitable for everyone involved. either of these elements (and others) customiseed to fit the fatalitys of the troupe combine to score whats commonly referred to among marketing professionals as The Marketing Mix.The Marketing MixThe Marketing Mix a phrase first used by Neil Borden in his paper The creation of the Marketing Mix has become a well-known term for describing the strategies theorise to advertise services and products. One of the most widely used marketing mix paradigms is The Four Ps proposed by E J McCarthy in 1964. The Four Ps areProductWhether it be a existent item or a service, first and foremost you need something to sell. What do customers want to buy? What features does your product or service need to fulfill the needs of your potential customers?PlaceIn the past, brick and mortar stores and catalogues were the only two options to consider, the internet has made a global market much easier to reach but has also made the market much more competitive. Companies need to consider where customers might look for their product. Is a physical location necessary or can the business exist solely online? The pros and cons of each would need to be considered, for example a belittled spark off-up clothing store would be competing with huge corporations such as Primark, Debenhams, etc while paying for pricy rails costs of a brick store, stock storage and paying for staff wages.Online, that same start-up fraternity would still be competing with those same corporations as on the high street, plus a huge other array of smaller or medium sized online outlets. However the running costs and risks of an online-only start-up are borderline. A company can exist solely as a part of a larger plaque such as Ebay or Etsy many who start out this way and find advantage and thus discern to invest in their own website for selling their products without the middle man. Some then may also go on to open high-street stores, for example wide-eyed Be existed as a purely online business at first before investing in physical stores which have an advantage over online only clothing stores as customers can try things on and wont have to worry about complicated returns procedures.Pricedecision the pay price for a product or service is a balancing act. Price too high for your target market and nonentity will buy. Pricing too low not only means freeze off profit margins but can also label your product as cheap which may not be an image the company wants to convey. orchard apple tree are a perfect example of hitting the perfect price to quality ratio for their products target market. apple products are tremendously universal despite being comparable in technical specifications to other, lower priced competing devices.Ken Segall, Apples former marketing executive, said himself that Apple doesnt do cheap stating in his blog that Apple makes products for people who care about design, simplicity, quality and a ample take in and are willing to pay more for these things. For Apple to compromise in any of these areas would be a violation of the Prime Directive. (Segall, 2014) Apple products are desirable because theyre seen by their fans as the most prestigious and high quality brand, this image would be diminished if the products were cheaper as was demonstrated by the relatively low gross revenue of the iPhone 5C which was made of plastic and lower in price than other Apple devices (Though still much more expensive than competing brands).PromotionA great product wont sell if nobody knows about it, but similarly a terrible product wont sell well no matter how much time and money goes into advertising. The point of advertising is to convinced potential customers that your product or service will add value to their life in some way thats relative to the price they would pay for it.This model can be apply to a wide range of services and products as it is non-specific and can slowly be tailored to fit the needs of the business using it. It all boils down to putting the adjust product in the right place at the right price.Several alternatives and additions have been suggested by marketing experts and academics kindred in the interest of creating a marketing mix thats more relevant in an labor that has changed in ways nobody could have predicted. When the 4Ps were first introduced in the 60s the internet as we know it today did not exist so its likely to say new strategies and updated methodologies are infallible.Some additions that have been suggested include people encouraging good customer service and a good operative environment for employees. Process looking at ways to streamline and reduce costs in both producing the product and how the business is run. Physical depict Could be in the form of endorsements, customer testimonials and feedback or any awards the company may have achieved. Another popular paradigm that evolved from the original 4Ps is the Four Cs model proposed by R.F. Lauterborn in 1993. customer/ClientsThe customers are the driving force behind any business, so an organisation should ask themselves what they can do for thei r customers what needs and wants to they have and how can you help?CostHow much will it cost the customers, are they acquiring good value? If your product is more expensive than competitors, why? Does it offer prize quality? If its cheaper, again customers will want to know why, will they be compromising on quality? Or does the business pretend lower costs by streamlining internal jut outes and passing the savings on to the consumer?ConveniencePeople buy things that they believe will make their lives easier or enhance it in some way and when they want something they want it to be easy to find and round-eyed(a) to purchase. For example a clean, uncluttered website that makes finding and get products easy will scat to sell more than one with confusing navigation and a lengthy checkout member.CommunicationAll promotion and advertising is a way of communicating with customers, a way to get your message and brand out into the world and let people know what your product is and w hy people should buy it. Companies who stay go after with their customers cultivate trust and loyalty which earns them repeat business and recommendations.This model is essentially the same as the original version but is designed to upgrade organisations to look at things from the customers point of view. on that point are merits to both sides of the debate over whether the 4Ps need revamping. On the one hand the original is broad enough for marketing executives to use as a very rough guide to shaping their own unusual strategy. On the other hand in an ever changing industry improvements on old practices is a good thing how can the world evolve if change is not embraced? Doing things simply because thats the way they have constantly been done may cause a company to tick over and lose market share for not being innovative enough.I would like to propose my own take on the marketing mix, the 4Es modelExcellenceNo matter the product or service, melodic phrase to be the best at what you do is a good address to aim for. This is more easily achieved if a business focuses on one bad-tempered area rather becoming a jack of all trades and a master of none. Take for example the gaming company Mojang, who were lately purchased by Microsoft for $2.5billion. They developed one game Minecraft and they did it so well that it became more than just a simple browser game. Its now an intrinsic part of pop culture for this generations gamers with a huge diverse fellowship thats still growing 5 years on.Similarly, Facebook bought Instagram for $1billion after it prevail the peregrine photo sharing market and WhatsApp for a staggering $19billion a simple messaging service that took off in popularity and supplely overtook market share from the big players like Microsoft and Google. (CNN Money, 2014) Facebook itself started as a simple look and is now one of the most powerful corporations in the world buying off any competitors is one way to keep that lead. A simple concept executed well can change the world.EngagementSocial media and the internet in general have made communicating with customers easier than ever before. The best way to figure out what consumers want is to ask them. A business selling food for thought products for example could operate with their customers by reservation a post on social media asking what different flavours they would like to see. This not only gives the company a firm idea of how popular a new product would be, it also generates buzz and makes the customers feel more involved in the process making them more likely to truly buy said product when its released.Creating quality, relevant content for a website perhaps in the form of a blog gives customers a reason to regularly visit a website. Using a food company as an example again, they could have a recipe section on their website. Maybe even a community section where others could post and share their own recipes. If these recipes are good qual ity it can lead to people thinking If the free recipes are this good, just imagine how great the food they sell will be turning casual visitors into paying customers. shut upAllow potential customers to make informed decisions by providing them with breeding about whats on offer in a way thats easy to understand and easy to access similarly ensure to make the process of handing over their money once theyve intractable to buy quick and easy. With an uncountable number of websites in existence a potential customer can be lost very easily if they cant find what theyre looking for or find any part of the process touchy they will simply go elsewhere.EconomyFinding the right price for a product or service can still be as tricky today as its always been with one exception information on competitors and target markets is readily available. charge in a niche market there are likely to be several competitors operating at varying scales of price and quality. The s altitudeping point i s not necessarily to undercut everybody and become the cheapest but to find the right balance of cost and quality most people are knowing to pay a precise bit more for a higher quality product as long as they can reassert that it will be worth the investment. Similarly there are many people who will buy the cheapest option available regardless of quality. Establishing a target market and researching purchasing habits can give a company a good idea of where to price themselves to be competitive and profitable. An expensive product can still be considered economical if its benefits are relative to its cost.In the end, any model is only as good as the implementation. Knowing the concepts behind a good marketing strategy isnt the same as having the skills to proposal, implement and maintain them. Internet marketing campaigns take time. It takes time to gain enough followers on social media to start fully engaging with a target market it takes time to create a catalogue of hig h quality strategic content and it takes time to build up consumer trust. Internet marketing isnt as simple as making a Facebook page and uploading the company logo the internet is an interactive medium. Its not a billboard, its more a large ongoing focus group.Internet Marketing ToolsOne of the biggest advantages internet marketing has over traditional marketing is the fact the effectiveness of a campaign can be more accurately measured and probed. television adverts are measured in terms of how many people have viewed it beyond that its mostly guesswork its very difficult to measure how many people aphorism a television advert and then went on to perform the desired action (such as go to a store and buy a product, or make a phone call to enquire about a service). With internet marketing everything that happens as the result of a campaign can be tracked every step of the way.An email marketing campaign for example can be tracked to see how many people opened the email, how man y then visited the website (known as the click through rate) from there it can also track what the visitor did while they were on the website. How much time they dog-tired there, which pages they visited, whether or not they purchased something or if they abandoned their force in the process of trying to make a purchase. Other details such as which device the customer was using, their location, age and previous browsing habits may also be tracked.Making use of tools such as Google Analytics can show at a glance the raw entropy related to any aspect of a visitors habits. There are many other tools on the market but Google Analytics is the most widely used and it integrates well with SEO Google have built up a giant network of partners and billions of websites have tracking codes. Individual companies can access their own entropy to analyse but Google has access to everything and have built up a database of browsing habit data they use to improve their algorithms as well a s sell to third parties (such as Facebook). This creates a constant feedback loop for everyone involved.This raw data however, is fairly useless if a company does not know how to analyse it and make use of the information. Some raw data has obvious implications for example if a company finds that the majority of visitors are using a mobile device and their site is not fully accessible on mobile, they should look into optimising their site for mobile users to accommodate the needs of their customers.Other times the data is only the beginning point, it must be analysed before it becomes useful information that can be applied in a practical way. track tools can give answers to the questions how, when and where with a high degree of accuracy. Who? can be answered to a point, the approximate age of visitors can be tracked, as can their previous browsing habits which may give some insight into their likes and needs. The one question raw data cannot answer is wherefore? Why do visitor s behave the way they do? Why do some e-commerce shoppers add items to a drag on and then abandon it during the checkout process? Why was the click through rate low/high for a particular campaign?Surveys and social media can be used as tools for getting answers to these questions. Once the quantitative data from tracking tools have provided a starting point, specific questions can be posed to collect qualitative data. unitedly they can give a company a lot of priceless information to help them improve future campaigns and the way they do business in general. Facebook has its own analytics tools called Facebook Insights it works in a similar way to Google Analytics but is more focused around Facebook pages and ads. Facebook insights shows how many people saw a particular post (reach), how many responded to the post (engagement), and other information such as visitors ages and interests based on what other pages they have desire on Facebook.Facebook Insights can be used to deter mine which posts get the most likes and shares, which lets companies know what their audience is likely to respond to so they can tailor future posts accordingly. It can also provide information about when visitors engage with the page so future posts can be scheduled to post at a time when the highest reach is likely to be achieved. combine with the data from Google analytics social media marketing campaigns and posts can be tracked down to the fine details. If these posts lead to strategic content tracking can be broken down into stages to measure the quality of a websites content.Many websites use this strategy, Cracked being one of them. Cracked are an entertainment website who post funny/interesting articles, columns, videos and podcasts. When a new baste of content is posted, their social media team make posts to advertise it to followers. Facebook Insights will provide the tracking information about reach, likes and engagement and Google Analytics takes over once visitor s have clicked through. Cracked tell apart up their articles into several pages they could easily fit the content onto a virtuoso page so why split it up?One reason is usability, pages load quicker with less content on and readers are less likely to feel overwhelmed by a huge wall of text than they are several manageable chunks.Another reason is SEO the more pages and links robots have to crawl, the higher the site is likely to rank on search engine results. Instead of one page per article related to certain keywords there are 2-4 pages per article.Finally, splitting articles up into several pages bears tracking analytics to be performed in stages. How many people got to the end of the first page and deemed the content interesting enough to click on the read more link? How many read the whole thing? How many dropped out and where did they tend to do it?This can help determine weak spots in content and the company can then formulate a plan to improve the situation. It can also be used to further engage visitors who seem to be enjoying the content the final page of an article could for example act as a trigger for a pop-up box that prompts to visitor to sign up for a newsletter. If a visitor has enjoyed an article its relatively safe to assume they would like to see more the same is not true for a visitor who has only just get on the home page. They havent read anything yet, why would they want to sign up for a newsletter?As mentioned in a previous section, tracking data does have its limitations that marketers have to be assured of to properly interpret the data their tools produce. Specifically direct traffic can be difficult to differentiate from all other types of traffic. This makes analysing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns less straight forward than it seems. In a nutshell, whenever a referrer is not passed traffic is label as direct.What this means is a glance at an analytics report may suggest that 50% of a sites traffic is dire ct, center the visitor typed the URL directly into their browser. The report could for example state organic search accounted for 40% and advertisements 10%.If a company is putting satisfying resources into advertising and seeing those kinds of numbers they may decide it isnt worth it and seek to make changes. While in reality direct traffic may only account for 20% while ads account for 30%, making the cost per conversion rate much more favourable.There are a multitude of reasons a referrer may not be passed to the tracking software that results in traffic being incorrectly marked as direct. For example many people make use of ad blocking software that often have clauses that allow for non-intrusive advertising. While users of this software can see and click on non-intrusive ads, the software blocks the server solvent required to pass the referral to the tracking software. Many browsers now offer a do not track option to offer additional secretiveness to users, turning on this setting also blocks tracking requests. Some people may perform a search for something or click on an advertisement but not make a purchase right at that moment and instead consume to come back posterior by typing in the URL directly so their visit and subsequent purchase is marked as direct when it was really the result of a campaign.As more users become increasely concerned with privacy tracking and tailored advertising becomes more difficult. Making use of marketing tools makes the process easier but they are still only tools their usefulness is determined by the skill of the person utilising them.Interactive distinguish ProcessingOrder processing is evidently an important part of e-commerce, an online catalogue isnt much use if people cant actually purchase anything. As mentioned in previous sections, the process of placing an order should be made as easy as possible for the customers.Once a customer has decided they would like to hand over some money a company shoul d not distract them in any way. Some companies at this point might be tempted to upsell, cross promote or place advertising on the checkout pages but in almost all situations this is a mistake. If the customer gets annoyed at the ads they will leave. If they cant figure out how to continue with the checkout process because the design is cluttered or otherwise hard to use they will leave. If they dont feel confident about the legitimacy of the company or doubt the security of the checkout process they will leave.Upselling attempts should be handled carefully. Bombard customers will too many options and they may get distracted by browsing, decide not to check out and instead leave it for later they may not come back. Relevant promotions should be advertised at this point or ideally added to the cart automatically. For example if orders over a certain amount receive free shipping this should be prominently displayed within the cart and applied automatically when the threshold is reach ed customers like to feel like theyre getting good value so if they see it will only take them a small amount extra to receive free shipping they may decide to add a few more items.Argos successfully uses this technique every year during the build up to Christmas they offer a 5 verifier for anyone spending over 50 and 10 for anyone spending over 100. This promotion is prominently displayed all over their website, catalogues and physical stores. Rather than offering a discount on the current purchase, they encourage repeat business by offering money off the succeeding(a) purchase. This has a twofold effect customers will buy a little more than they planned in order to get the voucher and then spend even more after that to use said voucher (not many items can be bought for under 5 or 10 and no change is issued to further encourage customers to use their voucher in full and pay a little extra on top rather than waste any of it).If adding additional items can be done without the c ustomer leaving the checkout this will further increase the success of upselling attempts. Both Dominos and Asda integrate upselling into the checkout process. Dominos uses a sidebar next to the main checkout area displaying a plectrum of small items (sides, desserts, drinks) with a small discount applied visitors can click add to order and the total is updated on the page without taking them elsewhere. Asda displays a selection of items that the customer has previously ordered, but are not currently in the cart with the heading Have you forgotten anything? This can be reformatory to the customer because they may have indeed forgotten something, and Asda in return make additional sales.Businesses can track the behaviour of their customers and analytics tools can be used to determine if a checkout design is working.The tale of The $ three hundred Million Button published in Luke Wroblewskis book Web Form Design Filling in the Blanks contributed by Jared M. Spool is an first-class example of just how important the design of the checkout process is.The piece describes a company who decided to examine their checkout process which have a login and registration screen after customers clicked checkout. Their designers reasoned that making registration non-optional would encourage repeat business and customers wouldnt mind record in to take advantage of quicker checkouts in the future.Spool was called in to analyse the checkout design his team put together a focus group, gave them all a budget and a shopping list and asked them to checkout from the site. Upon being presented with the login form many participants were not sure if they had used the site before and attempted many unsuccessful logins before clicking the Forgot discussion? button. Many times this was unsuccessful as they couldnt remember which email address they used. Others who were sure they had not previously registered were reluctant to do so. One shopper is quoted as saying Im not here to e nter into a relationship. I just want to buy something. Many verbalize that they felt the company just wanted to use their details for e-mail and others were concerned about privacy.Upon examining tracking analytics for the site the team discovered that 45% of users had multiple registrations and over 160,000 Lost Password requests were being sent every day. 75% of these never returned to the site to complete the lost password process and ergo did not complete the checkout process.Spools team suggested the design was changed to make registration optional. The register button was changed to Continue with the message You do not need to create an account to make purchases on our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout. To make your future purchases even faster, you can create an account during checkout.This simple change resulted in the number of customers purchasing increasing by 45%. The extra purchases resulted in an extra $15 million in the first month and $300million after the first year.Businesses also need to take into consideration security when implementing an e-commerce system. A secure payment admittance must be used to make submitting customer financial and personalized information safe. Similarly this data needs to be stored securely and unplowed up to date to watch with the Data Protection Act. Any company accepting card payments (not only online) must also comply with PCI-DSS (Payment wit Industry Data Security Standard).If a company does not comply with PCI and DPA standards they run the risk of customer details being leaked which could lead to fraud. This is obviously bad for the customers whose details get stolen but would also damage the reputation of the company and destroy consumer trust as well as earn them huge fines from governing bodies.For small or start-up companies the cost, time and knowledge required to set up and maintain a payment gateway may feel like too much. In that case there are 3rd party services such a s PayPal and Google Checkout which can act as a middle man between the merchant and customer. The business doesnt have to worry about keeping customer details secure if they dont store them and instead allow PayPal or similar to handle it. There are fees involved that work on a percentage basis, the more you earn, the more you pay. Additional fees are also charged for withdrawals. PayPal in particular has become an internationally recognised brand and most shoppers are now happy to use them so a small company wont lose out on too many customers from not offering alternative payment options.Most third party payment processing companies offer a free (other than fees) service which hosts the shopping cart external to the main e-commerce site and a premium subscription service which allows full integration of the shopping cart into the website.For minimal cost and effort a small company can use the externally hosted cart while bigger companies may choose to invest in a more seamless us er experience for their customers.The web environment allows for scalability, businesses are free to start small with minimal risk and expand at their own pace.ReferencesCNN Money, 2014. Facebook buys WhatsApp for $19 billion. Online Available at http//money.cnn.com/2014/02/19/technology/social/facebook-whatsapp/Google, 2011. Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking. Online Available at http//googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.htmlMojang, 2014. Yes We Were Bought By Microsoft. OnlineAvailable at http//mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsoft/National Audit Office, 2013. The UK cyber security strategy Landscape review. Online Available at http//www.nao.org.uk/report/the-uk-cyber-security-strategy-landscape-review/Nielsen, J., 2007. Banner Blindness Old and New Findings. Online Available at http//www.nngroup.com/articles/banner-blindness-old-and-new-findings/ hone Smart, n.d. Youre doing Google Analytics all wrong, heres why. Online Available at http//www.optimizesmart.com/google-analytics-wrong-why/Segall, K., 2014. Apples adventures in plastic. Online Available at http//kensegall.com/2014/02/apples-adventures-in-plastic/Figure 1 How users interacted with the race Finder4Available at http//www.nngroup.com/articles/fancy-formatting-looks-like-an-ad/Fancy Formatting, Fancy Words = Looks Like a Promotion = Ignored JAKOB NIELSEN September 4, 2007Figure 2 Social Media Useage over time, broken down by age5 Available at http//www.pewinternet.org/2013/08/05/72-of-online-adults-are-social-networking-site-users/72% of Online Adults are Social Networking Site UsersOANNA BRENNER, AARON SMITH August 5, 2013