Online video, mobile and social media technologies will have a profound impact on the online customer experience in the years ahead, said David Hogue, director of information design at Fluid, a web design and usability technology and services vendor.
Each of the three technologies will uniquely affect how Internet users shop e-commerce sites, he told more than 200 attendees yesterday at the Web Experience Forum ’08, held in Boston by Gomez Inc. and sponsored in part by Internet Retailer.
“Video is the next JPG—there will be seamless integration,” Hogue said, referring to the standard image file format that can be easily embedded on any web page. “Today you go to a site and a video player loads and ultimately things begin to stream. Tomorrow we’ll see seamless integration of video within designs, enhancing the customer experience. We’re already seeing it on sites like MartinAndOsa.com where products appear on models who walk on and off the screen as you filter products you wish to view.”
Mobile commerce technologies will become a greater part of the customer experience as they continue to develop, and as consumers and retailers learn the best ways to put m-commerce to work, Hogue said.
“In stores, consumers can use mobile technology to cross the boundaries between the physical and online worlds,” he explained. “As people walk by your store you can transfer coupons to their devices. Shoppers can access deeper product information while in stores, like a video of a fellow customer wearing a jacket in the mountains. And consumers can shop by price while in one store to see what prices are at other stores.”
And burgeoning social media will help the online shopping experience mirror its bricks-and-mortar counterparts, Hogue said.
“Social tools like co-browsing at NetShops.com are sprouting. You can invite friends to shop with you,” he said. “And consumers have begun building affinity groups, such as ones centered around brands on Facebook. They are evangelists with credibility and authenticity.”
By using video, mobile, social and other technologies, Internet retailers can further enhance the ways customers shop their sites. How these technologies will mature, though, remains to be seen.
“The future is hard to predict,” Hogue concluded, “but we know we can craft better web experiences.”
Back...
