3:00 - 4:30 p.m.

Search & Destroy: Removing Obstacles to Site Effectiveness

Introduction: If you think there's not much room for improvement in retail web sites, think again. A recent study showed that 89% of consumers have experienced a failure of some sort when accessing a web site and 34% of those switched to a competitor as a result. The reasons for such failures are numerous, including browser incompatibility, consumer-controlled browser settings that disable site functions (cookie rejection, image blocking, etc.) and disrupted access. In most cases, the e-retailer doesn't even know that a failure occurred and so is not only unaware that there was a problem but has no idea of how to fix it. In addition, consumers are finding very different experiences when they access a web site through one browser, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer, vs. another, Mozilla's FireFox, for instance.

Workshop Content: This session will provide detail as to the various ways that consumers fail to gain access to a retail web site and what e-retailers can do about it. Our first speaker has consulted with numerous retailers about how to make their sites more accessible. He will talk about how to analyze whether consumers are able to access your site and how to make sure that the door is open to all comers. Our two retailer speakers will discuss the measures they undertook to make sure that their sites were easily accessible to shoppers with all sets of Internet skills and access devices.

About the Instructors: Richard T. Litofsky, president and CEO of cyScape Inc., has helped dozes of leading marketers identify and remove the obstacles to web site navigability and successful operation. Tim Wolfe heads up Foot Locker’s efforts to ensure that the web site is available to all shoppers at all times.