Usability of Gadgets - Many are not Buying and Using Gadgets Due to Usability Problems

Many electronic gadgets are coming with touch screens and various buttons. Even the mobiles have many buttons. Many find it difficult to remember the functions of various buttons and use the gadgets. Hence they do not use the gadgets. Can a more universal system be designed so that people will not have difficulty.

Passwords are another problem. There are so many websites that want one to register, create a user name and password. How one is going to remember all those user names and passwords. One thing good is that now many are using facebook, twitter and gmail ids and passwords as access facilitators for their websites. This is to an extent solved the problem.

Usability of websites is an issue under examination, Jacob Nielsen is a guru in this field. The site maintained by Nielsen (http://www.useit.com/) has a wealth of information on the topic.

Reference
Online Marketing: A Customer Led Approach, Richard Gay et al. Pp.282-83.

E-Commerce - Online Retailing - Conversion Statistics and Interpretation

Call for action increases conversion rates

IBM Coremetrics Benchmarking Reports on E-commerce sites conversion performance

http://www.coremetrics.com/solutions/benchmark-report-black-friday-cyber-monday-2010.php

You can download the full report from the above page.

Interpreting the conversion rate meaningfully
http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/conversion-optimisation/why-conversion-rate-is-a-horrible-metric-to-focus-on/

Digital Marketing Trends 2011
http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/conversion-optimisation/why-conversion-rate-is-a-horrible-metric-to-focus-on/

Effectiveness and Efficiency in Digital Marketing
http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/conversion-optimisation/why-conversion-rate-is-a-horrible-metric-to-focus-on/

10 Metrics to monitor for E-commerce sites
http://www.palmerwebmarketing.com/blog/10-metrics-every-ecommerce-site-should-monitor/

Call for action increases conversion rates
http://www.palmerwebmarketing.com/blog/increase-your-conversion-rate-with-a-call-to-action/

E-Commerce - Online Retailing - Growth

February 2011 Forrester Forecast
US online retail sales grew by 12.6% in 2010 to 176.2 billion. Assumption for next 5 years 10% growth.  By 2015 it will reach $278.9 billion.
http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/us_online_retail_forecast,_2010_to_2015/q/id/58596/t/2

Presently (2010) online sales account for 8% of total sales
http://mashable.com/2011/02/28/forrester-e-commerce/

But influence of web on sales can be as high as 50%. It means people buy because of influence of web.

The E-Commerce can go up to 20% of total sales
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/03/08/e-commerce-growth-slows-but-still-out-paces-retail/

US E Commerce Forecast for 2008 to 2012
$175 billion to 335 billion
http://www.sescommerce.com/ecommerce-growth.asp