Good Shopping Product Aid

Shopping online is without doubt the future of vast segments of the retail trade, even established high street stores happen to be forced to make the investment of a strong web presence because of the anxiety about being left behind. The names of once famous retailers who failed to spot the seismic change in consumer spending habits makes for sobering reading.

Yet the high-street retailer still has an edge in some ways, it manages to provide the consumer a retail experience that the online store can't. The knowledge of visiting a retail location where the business has almost complete control over the buying environment is extremely powerful. It subtly sells not just the products on sale, but in addition the ethos and values of the brand - the best example of this really is the attention to detail a major store places on every element of their customer interaction.

If it sounds like the new online shops have their work cut-out, well that's only one side of the story. For all of the ways in which they cannot compete with a physical retail outlet they have one very powerful advantage - convenience. On the flip side, the online presence of a highly styled and sculpted brand cannot control the surroundings and atmosphere of the place where the consumer is browsing their products - it could be a quiet office or busy internet café. So careful attention must be paid in an attempt to immerse the web page user in as much of a retail experience as is possible, while you can imagine, this is not the easiest of tasks. As much detail as is lavished on embellishments such as music and animated elements it's actually the small obstructions to the retail experience that cause most disruption to that coveted immersion. Any hiccups within the path from browsing to basket to checkout need to be ironed out.

Thought must also receive to the sometimes random path the user desires to take around the store. One example is the 'basket' page, many sites do not enable the user to click on the items in their basket to navigate to the individual product pages. This, although partially understandable because of the retailer trying to 'guide' the user to the checkout, can be very frustrating to the user that simply want to review a find product reviews; blog post from www.anibookmark.com, description before purchasing.

So the on-line shop has some way to go, it has inherent strengths and yet suffers some effortlessly avoidable weaknesses. There is no stopping the future of retail and with some care and attention it may be the effortless experience that both retailer and consumers want.