IT director Steve Goodheart said: “All across the country IT bosses are sitting there knowing that they are falling behind their competitors because they need to go online but not doing anything about it because they believe they do not have the time, money or resources to cope and will never catch up.”

The research concluded that the “myths” surrounding going online could leave many companies too far behind to catch up when the current economic downturn ends.

MYTH 1: IT directors fear the battle to convince colleagues that going online won’t cannibalise sales at existing stores.

MYTH 2: They have convinced themselves that they don’t have the knowledge within the company or the manpower to devote staff to the project and create a champion who will galvanise the organisation and make things happen.

MYTH 3: They can see the extra cost of going online but can’t see where the extra revenue will come from.

MYTH 4: They fear having to throw all their IT resources at a long-term project which will have an unknown benefit – and they won’t be able to cope.

MYTH 5: They don’t want to get their hands dirty and have an online relationship with customers, and the extra work involved in dealing with their emails and drawing up customer databases.

MYTH 6: The lack of a product delivery service/infrastructure and the logictics of setting one up will unravel all their good work.

Transaction was formed a year ago by two former Littlewoods executives, who helped the retail giant pioneer internet retailing in 1999 and who each have more than 20 years’ experience in remote home retailing.

They have been involved in the launch of 15 retail websites which now deliver annual net sales exceeding £1 billion.

Transaction Partnership has published a report dispelling the myths, which is available here

Richard Blanchard, marketing director of Transaction, said: “The list we have produced will help clear the fog in their mind and reassure them that the process isn’t overbearing.”

IT-Director.com

Technically it is becoming much easier and more cost effective to talk to the online customer in real-time or offer an instant phone or email back response system. The trend is growing and will rightly become a key point of difference for successful retailers in the future.Retailers must beware however, that the technology doesn’t make the customer feel uneasy and isn’t perceived as being too intrusive rather than helping to engage them.

Smart technology can allow online retailers to sense when a frustrated customer is about to prematurely abandon a transaction by monitoring as they click-through pages and giving them a pop-up ‘Click to Call’ option when their movement stops.Some websites even go one step further – providing a message at the optimum moment from a real-life customer service operator, poised and ready to interact with the customer, guiding them towards a purchase.

However, many online customers are technology novices and you can almost picture them looking around the room, startled, wondering who is watching them. They feel unnerved – and that Big Brother moment could be enough to make them leave the site.The other major challenge with personalisation is when it goes wrong. Amazon, for example, suggests options to buy based on previous purchases – but imagine how disconcerting that could be if you keep being advised to buy kitchen equipment simply because you’ve bought a new coffee grinder for your mother-in-law’s birthday?

Golf is my passion – not cooking – but Amazon doesn’t know it – and that is the kind of thing that can put off potential purchasers. I believe the most customer-friendly use of personalised interaction comes at the most important part of the online purchasing experience – the check-out, when customers are most likely to have a genuine need for help.Just as a customer in a traditional store looks for an assistant when they have a problem, they also welcome real-time help when they are having trouble using their credit card whilst trying to buy online.

A real-time pop-up option offering to guide them towards a solution is a genuine customer service and helps convert some of online retail’s 65 per cent of abandoned baskets into sales.For those customers who do want to maximise interaction with a product or brand, the new twist in e-commerce is using open Id’s, such as Facebook Connect. Using one simple log-in for a wide variety of sites is very consumer friendly and allows e-tailers to benefit from the pool of information gathered as the customer travels around the web.

They can direct purchases back to their Facebook mini-feed where they can share experiences, comments and reviews with others if they want to. The key, just as in traditional stores, is to give the customer what they want – and don’t fuss over them like an over-enthusiastic sales assistant.

Steve Goodheart, partner at Transaction Partnership

e-pay news

Steve Goodheart of Liverpool-based online analysts, Transaction Partnership, said many retailers risk missing out on the internet sales boom through the over use of tools such as real-time interaction which allows them to talk directly to shoppers while they are online.

The Business desk.com

13th July 2009

Headline is potentially misleading! The sites we have launched turnover circa £1bn p.a. not us.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/business-news/2008/11/21/e
x-littlewoods-bosses-hit-1bn-100252-22310229/

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk

“The site is understood to have been created by Transaction Partnership”.  Really we delivered the site alongside Code Computer Love the web designers and BTFresca the web platform providers.  

http://www.drapersonline.com/news/2008/11/matalan_to_trial_web_sales.html

www.drapersonline.com

Thursday 25th December 2008

The Queen’s Speech will signal the biggest ever rush to the sales on Christmas Day as customers take advantage of the lull in festivities to shop online, analysts have predicted.

Online expert Transaction Partnership, which advises retailers like Matalan and O’Neill, has pinpointed 3pm on December 25 as the key time when most cost-conscious consumers begin searching for bargains.

Published: 09 January 2009 00:08 

Web discounts have grabbed customer attention over Christmas but exploiting the online world to its fullest could prove make or break in this tough economic climate. Joanna Perry reports. 

The likelihood of falling store sales in 2009 might make the online doubters think again. Even Matalan – which, along with other value fashion retailers, had shied away from e-commerce – is now experimenting with the channel.

Online expert Transaction Partnership was formed a year ago by ex-Littlewoods executives Steve Goodheart and Richard Blanchard, who helped the company pioneer online sales in 1999. They estimate that a typical mid-sized retail chain could expect 100,000 hits a week on a non-transactional site, equating to £4 million in sales across a year or £1 million alone during the Christmas period.

The battle for the hearts and minds of cash-strapped consumers will get bloody this year; it will also undoubtedly be fought most fiercely online.

“Competitive pricing is a given. Ease of use has to be the key thing. Get that right and the response will hopefully be there”

22nd December 2009