The importance to small business owners of ensuring that they have a fully functioning website has been highlighted by recent data showing that over half of British online adults say they are transacting more online in 2009 due to the current economic climate.
Harris Interactive's 2009 Survey of Online Consumer Behaviour found that businesses are failing to fully capitalise on this shift in consumer patterns, with 77% of online adults who have conducted an online transaction in the past year saying they have experienced problems when doing so.
Of those that experienced a problem 46% stated that they would abandon the transaction as a result, with 40% saying they would switch to an online or offline competitor. In the British retail sector alone, a potential £11bn of revenue could be affected by website issues.
Small business owners must also be aware that consumers, empowered by social media, are increasingly likely to share experiences and opinions about companies, rather than with them. The survey results show that online adults are increasingly turning to social media to broadcast their online experiences to others, rather than directly with companies.
13% of online adults who encountered problems conducting online transactions said they shared those experiences on a blog or social networking site, nearly twice as many as in 2008. However, direct communication with a company declined, with 25% of online adults who experience problems conducting online transactions then posting a complaint on a company website and 35% of all British online adults contacting a company's call centre after encountering problems using the website in 2009, a decrease from 42% that did so in 2008.
However, the percentage of consumers who have experienced problems (77%) when conducting online transaction has actually improved compared to the last two years (89% in 2008 and 86% in 2007), with many companies realising the benefits of becoming more 'customer-centric' and investing in usability or customer experience management solutions.
Despite this slight decline in the number of problems customers are experiencing when buying online, many business groups still feel that small firms websites are still not at the required standard and SMEs are not using their websites enough to sell their products.
"The number of firms using the internet to sell their goods is too low, especially in a recession. There is clearly an opportunity to create sales online, not least because people are increasingly preferring to stay at home and shop rather than go out," said Stephen Alambritis, chief spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses.
