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NetRaker’s eShopping Study Reveals the Web Site Drivers of Success with Visitors

Yahoo, Amazon and AOL evaluated as a significant example of the factors that lead to better customer retention, revisitation and conversion

September 7, 2000 – (Sunnyvale, California) Results of a nationwide study released today reveal the factors that cause people to stay or return and interact with a company's web site in real numbers. The study indicates that clarity and navigation are more significant measurements than performance, and that if a company improves even a little bit on these things, there is a direct impact to increasing bottom line. This is the first direct comparison study conducted among Internet market leaders Yahoo Shopping, Amazon and AOL Shopping, which represent 70% of the traffic/attention/shopping audience, to evaluate the effectiveness of their web site.

The study found that the ability of the three mega-shopping sites to meet user expectations resulted in high satisfaction, revisit and purchase likelihood scores. Furthermore, if a site was able to increase the company's ability to meet user's expectations, that company is almost guaranteed to experience a "domino" effect in terms of impact. Increasing the site's rating by a mere five percent to meet expectations on key criteria can result in an annual revenue increase between 10 and 35 percent.

The findings were announced by NetRaker Corporation, an Internet company that analyzes critical dynamics between a company's web site and its customers. The eShopping study will be updated four times per year to provide a real time view of customer satisfaction and retention on a company's web site that will lead to e-commerce success. Download a summarized report of this study (pdf 95KB). To order the full eShopping report, please call us toll-free at 1.877.483.2114 x117 or email sales@netraker.com.

"As more and more people go online, creating a great customer experience and making the web easier to use are integral to e-business success," stated Doug van Duyne, NetRaker President and CEO. "By creating an easy to use, customer-centric web site, companies can build brand loyalty and increase revenues. Our study provides the real-time, web site evaluation measurements and competitive comparisons to evaluate customer satisfaction for e-commerce success."

Methodology
The eShopping study combined the strengths of known research and usability procedures with the strengths of the medium itself. The design incorporated the basic elements of experimental design with each respondent spending 25-35 minutes in depth on one site independent of the other two. The study was based on interviews with a total of 259 Internet users who are either online purchasers or potential online purchasers and experienced a total response rate of 46.6%. The highest response rate was for Amazon at 53.5% while the lowest was for AOL respondents at 42.7%. The questions were rated on an 11-point rating scale (0 to 10).

Actual interaction with the site defines shoppers evaluations
Yahoo Shopping (shopping.yahoo.com) was the overall winner, with Amazon (www.amazon.com) second, and AOL Shopping (www.aol.com/shopping/) a very distant third. Yahoo edged out Amazon on a number of key variables including:

Providing clear direction to get the information, service or products you want
Ease of navigating or finding your way through
Site represents a "cool" company
Site conveys a "fun and exciting" company
Guides you through content and functions

AOL's score was close to Yahoo and Amazon during the preliminary line of introductory questioning, which were typical questions asked of a site visitor. However, once an interaction with the site was directed as a part of the process, AOL's evaluations dropped dramatically – 28 to 35 percent lower scores than Yahoo or Amazon.

The "fastest" site did not win!
Using accepted measurements of a site's actual physical performance through SiteRaker, one of the applications in the NetRaker Suite, AOL's speed was gauged almost twice as fast as the other two sites. Yet, as illustrated in the previous finding, "site effectiveness and efficiency" – the most important measure to-date by other measurement companies – was unable to compensate for poor design and functionality in meeting a user's expectations.

Key criteria tested in the study

Guiding you through content and function
Making it easy to search for what you're looking for
Portraying a very reliable company
Providing easy to understand instructions
Visual design that makes you want to explore further

Room for improvement in the Internet industry
Not one of the test companies scored over an 8.02 on the 11-point scale (0 to 10). Yahoo and Amazon averages ranged from 7.0 to 7.8, while AOL's averages ranged from 5.3 to 5.9. Yet, these are the recognized leaders of this new industry.

About NetRaker Corporation
NetRaker Corporation, a privately held company based in Sunnyvale, CA, was founded in 1998 to analyze critical dynamics between a site and its customers. By enabling site managers to continually improve the customer experience, NetRaker removes hidden barriers to acquisition, retention and maximum lifetime value. The comprehensive NetRaker Suite of usability and market research applications gives site managers the power to go beyond simply tracking users to understanding the complete customer experience.

Media Contact:
Sarah Vilaysom
NetRaker Corporation
1.877.483.2114 x102
sarah@netraker.com

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