Perhaps in anticipation of less than jolly holiday sales, 21% of Top 500 e-retailers added coupons and rebates in 2008, according to data published in Internet Retailer’s 2009 Guide to Retail Web Site Design & Usability. Of the Top 500 retailers, 335 said they deployed coupons and rebates in 2008, up from 278 in 2007.
The addition of coupons and rebates reflects a growing trend among web retailers focusing on ways to stand out among competitors in a tight economic period, says Betsy Emery, CEO at Tellus, a Cincinnati-based retail web site design and planning company. “Coupons and rebates are good examples of the trend toward giving consumers a very concrete feeling of measurable value in offers being made,” Emery tells Internet Retailer. “Retailers are testing physical and virtual coupons. It’s almost like a multivariate testing approach to see which form works best.”
Following the trend toward increasing shopper interactivity, the largest percentage increase among 25 comparable categories of web site features came in customer reviews. 227 web retailers indicated they offered customer reviews in 2008, a 24% increase from 183 in 2007. Data was compiled from Internet Retailer’s 2008 and 2009 Top 500 Guide research and reported in the 2008 and 2009 editions of the Guide to Retail Web Site Design & Usability.
“We have seen an increase in the overall category of user-generated content,” Emery says. “It comes in varying forms—user or customer reviews is by far the No. 1. Among our clients it’s almost standard now and it’s relatively easy to implement. Another form of user-generated content we’re seeing is e-mail a friend.”
E-mail a friend saw a 13% increase in 2008, cited by 318 Top 500 web retailers, up from 281 who reported the feature in 2007.
After customer reviews, the next highest year-over-year growth rate came in social networking with a 23% increase from 95 web retailers in 2007 to 117 in 2008. Top sellers lists rounded out the top four web features, noted by 292 e-retailers in 2008, up 18% from 247 in 2007.
Top 500 e-retailers in 2008 increased or maintained features in 19 of 25 categories compared with the prior year. Among the six categories showing a decline in deployment, wish list was the greatest with a 3.4% drop from 204 in 2007 to 197 in 2008. The only other category with a notable decline was affiliate programs, down 1.4% from 349 in 2007 to 344 in 2008.
A decline in wish list offerings could reflect a reconfiguring of customer shopping lists, Emery notes. “Wish list is a good example of web retailers’ increased focus on user relevance. We have seen an increase in retailers offering shoppers ways to create more relevant lists, such as things I commonly buy or past orders.”
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