Now that business-to-consumer e-commerce is maturing and some web merchants are seeing their sales and sales conversion rates plateau, Internet retailers are investing more in outside third-party content management systems, Eric Peterson, a senior analyst with Jupiter Research, tells InternetRetailer.com.
In the past, many retailers, especially bigger chains and direct marketers with a large information technology and web development staff, developed their own content and content management systems internally.
But Peterson says he is hearing more web retailers talk about their challenge in growing online sales and sales conversions rates beyond a certain level.
“They’ve done all the right things with site optimization, A/B testing and web analytics to get to a certain point,” Peterson says. “Now they are asking the question: ‘We’ve done everything we can to get a 5% conversion rate, what else can we possibly do get to the 10% level?’”
To generate higher sales, Peterson says retailers are concentrating more on improving the quality of their site content. They will also increase their spending on third-party systems that will allow them to post more dynamic content, use more syndicated content supplied by their distributors and consumer brand manufacturers and increase the of use rich media.
“Rather than do it all in-house as many retailers were doing before, we are seeing more of them invest in product and content management technology supplied by an outside third-party,” Peterson says. “They see better content and product delivery as one way they can generate better numbers.”
Jupiter can’t project by how much retailers will increase their spending on content management technology. But retailers will be setting aside more resources for improving content management and evaluating third-party options.
“They are beginning to look around in the market to see what outside applications are available,” he says.
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