“Secure Widgets for Business — Spotlight on Online Retail”, a new report from US widget specialists Worklight, summarizes key market trends, analyst perspectives and industry statistics regarding the use of secure widgets and social media in online retail.
The report also identifies several key challenges for online retailers eager to leverage secure widgets for business, including security and privacy concerns, development costs, scalability and integration thresholds.
It also provides a series of recommendations for online retailers looking to extend marketing and sales efforts via secure transactional widgets, including:
- Allow customers to search and shop directly via the widget, without being redirected to the retailer website.
- Engage customers by providing personalised widgets with highly-granular, individualised offers to improve conversion rates, lower marketing costs, and increase lift. Enable customers to respond to offers within the widget, without being redirected.
- Provide social networking tools to let customers share experiences regarding services and products with their friends. Then let friends order products directly from the social networking sites.
- Experiment with marketing messages to quickly and cost-effectively select the most effective messages for micro-market segments.
- Monitor response and conversion rates to gauge the success of widget campaigns and improve performance.
- Compare the costs and returns of secure widget-based offers against traditional marketing channels or even non-secure widgets
“Today, online retailers are looking for ways to extend their reach to social networks, desktop and web widgets, blogs, and mobile applications to connect with customers,” says Worklight’s David Lavenda. “But the real question is not how to capture customers’ attention, but rather how companies generate sales and enhance customer loyalty via such popular tools as Facebook, iPhone, iGoogle, Adobe Air and others. Secure retail widgets represent a new and exceptional channel for convenient shopping and always-on customer service, one that generates sales for retailers and saves customers time and money.”
“Online sales are becoming an increasingly critical element of multi-channel retail sales, especially as people become highly selective in where and how they shop,” Lavenda added. “Retailers that are able to monetize this migration to the online channel, with successful widget marketing and sales efforts, will quickly stand apart from the rest.”
Readers can download the report free of charge from Worklight’s website.
