Most people who shop online–75% according to some surveys–do so in response to traditional advertising. Of those shoppers age 25 or less, nearly half prefer to buy online from a company that also has a physical presence in the real world. For the 55 and over demographic, that figure drops to around 40%, the opposite of what you would expect, since older demographics are assumed to be less comfortable in the online world.

Here’s another online shopping statistic that’s worth paying attention to: 66% of all age groups who shop online say they prefer to speak with a real person when dealing with an online store. Of this group, two-thirds prefer contact by phone over email or some other form of online interaction.

The message for an online merchant is clear: The more ways you can find to ground your website in the physical world, the more likely you are to retain your customers’ loyalty, which, as we all know, is Internet economy’s Holy Grail. It’s easy enough to find out which customers give you repeat business or refer other potential customers to you, but understanding why they do that is a far more complex undertaking. Price, of course, is an important consideration–especially online where customers can very easily shop for cheaper prices, if they exist (and they almost always do)–but we know it’s often the aspects of your business that have little to do with how much you charge that keep people coming back for more, from the quality of your customer service to the fact that you remember the names of their children or that they are rabid Yankee fans.

Different companies have come up with different approaches to measuring online loyalty. Digital Idea (www.digitalidea.com), for example, claims that its product Dialscoreä will uncover and rank "the unique drivers of loyalty within each industry category" and then measure "how each site does on executing against those loyalty drivers." Dynaptics (www.dynaptics.com), on the other hand, has a product called E.ssistant which tracks in real time a customer’s online behavior and makes shopping recommendations based on that behavior. The goal is to increase a site’s stickiness by making it as easy as possible for a customer both to find what he or she wants and to locate other products of interest. What’s intriguing about Dynaptics’ approach is that it turns on its head the notion, widely held in the Internet economy, that past behavior is a reliable indicator of a shopper’s current needs: The man, in other words, who goes online one evening to find a gift for his twelve-year old niece is unlikely, when he logs on the following night, to be looking for products aimed at preteen girls. Personalization technology–which is all E.ssistant really is–needs, Dynaptics thinks, to reflect this reality.

Exterpise (www.exterpise.com) takes Dynaptics’ approach one step further, combining a real-time intelligence engine with background profiles into a product called Active Market 3.0, which is designed for large scale B-to-B commerce sites.

Whether any of these approaches truly measure or create loyalty is still an open question. Indeed, their success will depend largely on users knowing with some precision which questions about customers they want to ask and then having a clear plan for how the answers will be used to grow their businesses. For most of us concerned with getting people to our sites and then turning those "lookers" into "buyers," the wisest course of action is probably to start by paying attention to what those lookers and buyers have already told us they want: a blending of online and offline business and human contact in the buying process. Here are some tips for meeting these needs on your website:

1. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, make sure a picture of it is on your website. Include as well a line of copy indicating that the store is an established one. Something as simple as "Serving customers since ________" can make all the difference.
2. If you don’t have a physical store, portray your business as local–"Serving customers in area X for Y years," for example. If browsers know their neighbors are also your clients, they are more likely to buy from you.
3. Make sure you give browsers the option of contacting you via a toll free order number. A similar number for customer service, if you can manage it, is also a great idea. If you can’t staff the phones continually, list the hours when clients can expect to speak with a real person, and make sure to have a cordial and reassuring message for those times when no one is there.

Finally, make sure your online store is well-designed and professionally written. When the words and images on the screen are all someone has to judge you by, professional-quality design and writing will go a long way to reassuring "lookers" that your business is indeed grounded in the real world.

David Stein is president of Automatic On-Line System, a full service web design, marketing and maintenance company. He can be reached at (718) 361-3091 or by e-mail at internetdoctor@autoonline.net.

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