forest gump was right

There are many memorable quotes from the Tom Hanks movie "Forest Gump". The most memorable quote is (all together) "life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are gonna get". Life and business is a lot like this, full of surprises. Surprises that should be embraced. So what does this have to do with business and eCommerce? PLENTY

Every day online is a new opportunity to attract customers and find new ways to improve your customer experience. At the end of the day this is what it is all about. As I continue to say; people come to a web site and do one of four things;

1. Learn
2. Buy
3. Self serve
   
4. Leave

While most of us want surfers to do number two or number three; buy, convert or self serve (more on this in a future post). Number one (learn) and three (leave) are inevitable. Surfers must learn before they buy; this can be done on or off property. In most cases you want this done on your website as if it is done off property, there is that much more of a chance for surfers to go somewhere else to buy. Your competitors are only one click away. Our job every day as eCommerce professionals is to ensure that we expect the unexpected and more importantly react quickly. How do we do this; measure measure, measure. There is an old saying that goes: "you can't manage what you don't measure!" If you don't have a sizable investment in metrics or what I like to call metrology; you are "missing the boat". At Cingualr and later at AT&T we had a Director of Metrology, this person was worth their weight and more in the value that they delivered to our business.

The web unlike other sales channels is highly measurable and highly configurable. Look at EVERY campaign. Make sure you test everything you do; don't have one campaign, have two and measure the conversion of each, then dump the under performing one and work to improve the successful one.

Expect the unexpected and embrace what you find; but in eCommerce remember to measure it. Life is like a box of chocolates!

Bob