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Secret Shopper
By Robyn Greenspan
December 18, 2000

Hopefully, you''ve had some time to do your own holiday shopping this year. The responsibilities of an e-business owner leave little time for braving the malls and since the majority of your day is spent online anyway...chances are you''ve been patronizing some e-tailers. After all, no matter what type of e-store you own, it''s doubtful that you can send gifts from your own site to everyone on your list. There is a limit on how much dog food or socket wrenches you can give as presents.

While doing your online shopping, evaluate your site''s performance against some of the other e-tailers you visit. It''s often easier to be more objective about a site where you don''t have a personal interest, so critique your experiences at some e-tailers and see how your own e-store measures up.

• Were you able to find the items that you were looking for fairly easily?
• Did the site have a function to facilitate recommendations based on keywords, spending amounts or interests?
• Send an e-mail to customer service or ask a simple question to measure the response time. Was the response timely and satisfactory? (see: Online Customer Service: The Bad, the Worse and the Ugly)
• Were you able to process your transaction quickly and easily? Were shipping costs and taxes displayed Before The Final Click?
• Did you receive an e-mail containing the specifics of your order and tracking numbers?
• Was the recipient pleased with the timeliness, packaging and product?
• Were you billed correctly?
• Did you receive any follow-up correspondence regarding your order? (see: The Value of Good Penmanship)

So, how well did another e-tail site perform against your own? If you''ve constructed your systems and operations properly, your site should continually come out on top. Also, if you''ve received complaints from visitors regarding certain functions of your site, check out how other e-stores perform the same tasks more effectively.

One of the great things about the Internet is the ease and speed with which you can check out the competition. Use some of what you learn from others to continually evaluate, fine-tune and re-design your site to make it more efficient. However, try not to change too many front-end components at once or your visitors may not recognize you.

Related articles:
A Useful e-RoadMap
Is Your Web Site Competitive?
The Secrets to E-Commerce Success

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