source: www.arthurandersen.com

I found this survey to be particularly interesting in that there seems to be a strong message that people are growing weary and wary of our "eye candy" tactics to attract visitors and to hold them. If this survey is a true indication of general mood of Internet users, then it is clearly showing us that people want quality information, they want it quickly and they want it easily. We need to understand that our visitors want to make informed decisions based on sound information before making purchases through our sites rather than us telling them what they need.

The recent closure of many major eCommerce based sites is not "Grim Reaper", it is simply a lesson to us all that consumer is king, and needs to be treated as such. We all need to focus on what I call 4C's:

Customer Service: How long does it take you to respond to your visitors feedback or enquiries?

Content: More quality information and less hype.

Credibility: Would you buy something from someone in a dark alley? We need to gain trust of our visitors before they will make decision to purchase from us.

Coding: The quality of our coding needs to improve (yes, I'm guilty as charged ;0)..) to allow us to migrate relatively painlessly to emerging standards such as XML and XHTML. This will also ensure maximum compatibility with myriad of browser versions and OS's now in use.

With these points in mind, we will benefit from Internet and provide benefits to others. Hopefully we will see some sort of return to Internet "community" concept.

Greed may make you a few dollars quickly, but is not a good approach for longevity. Small web site owners now have a golden opportunity to step in, learn from lessons of dot bombs and become prosperous - it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

Michael Bloch  michael@tamingthebeast.net  http://www.tamingthebeast.net Tutorials, web content and tools, software and community. Web Marketing, eCommerce & Development solutions. _____________________________________________ 

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