Technologies for Electronic Commerce, Essay Example

Meeting Visitors’ Needs

Recommendations for refdesk.com

Refdesk is looking to survive on donations, which is a hard task in the current economic climate. It would be a good idea to clear up the navigation menu and create a sidebar for paid advertising spaces. These spaces could be sold to charities, businesses, organizations and the site could also benefit from contextual link paid advertising, such as Google Adwords.

The placement of banners and ads is not the most fortunate, therefore, by creating a site heatmap, the revenues could be increased.

Selling related reliable guides and e-books and featuring them next to the articles would also create extra income for the site. Users could make a donation of a guide instead of money, and these downloadable guides could be offered on a monthly subscription or one-off payment.

Online Shoe Store

The retention of an online shoe store can be increased by creating social media campaigns and setting up newsletters. Subscribers could benefit of a discount and setting up a free membership option. Also, learning customers’ preferences and recommending products based on their shopping profile would increase retention rate. A personal shopper available for chat would also help customers trust the site and find the right items. Making the shopping experience as pleasant as possible would make people come back and shop more. The checkout process and privacy features of the site need to be looked at as well to create trust.