Research on Winning Website Technology

Shopping carts and online display conveniences have become adopted by a growing number of websites as they effectively simplify and speed up transaction processes. This is according to the new "E-Survivors: Winning E-Commerce Strategies for 2001" report from ActivMedia Research.

The report documents how e-commerce support services have become common for 72% of consumer-oriented sites, with numbers set to rise to 81% in the coming year. The other key technologies that help are shown to be multi-party import/export systems to carry the load of paperwork and processing, automating and simplifying complex procedures. These allow more companies to participate in global business (rising from 8% of company business prior to adopting online practices to 21% today).

In addition, database-driven online catalogues that allow easy access to information in a variety of formats are currently in use at nearly a third of websites (30%). The report estimates that this level will grow by a third to 40% in the coming year. Online subscriptions for online companies that have parallel offline magazines are expanding dramatically as well. Whilst accounting for 40% of subscriptions in 2000 and having risen to 50% in 2001, the data indicates that they could reach some 61% in 2002.

The research does show that more marginal website technologies have only limited upside prospects for success in the near future. In this sense, 2" cell phone screens are usually inadequate in conveying sufficient information to stimulate most product sales. As a result, m-commerce over wireless phones and PDA-based wireless commerce acceptance is predicted to only ever reach relatively low levels of use. It is currently in use at 3% of online vendors, and could jump to around 14% in the coming year, according to the report.

Lastly, as a result of Internet innovation, the research reveals that half of today's profit-seeking online vendors are profitable (52%), while four in five (79%) of today's vendors expect to be profitable by spring 2002.

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.