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Wednesday, 14 July 2010 10:33 | Written by Peter Aitken | | |

The online shopper! Ten years ago most of us only had a very vague idea of
what constituted an online shopping experience. We may well have thought at
the time this was a very risky process and confined to only those foolhardy
enough to trust their credit card information to that big black hole within the
World Wide Web.

Somewhat different today! With little hesitation we will book and pay for
airline travel, accommodation around all corners of the globe and purchase
high priced consumer durables such as residential property and motor
vehicles, often sight unseen.

Online shopper practices and preferences continue to mature at almost

exponential pace. No longer do they limit their enquiries to a number of
competing websites for a selected product or service, they will now often
secure advice from internet listed ͞experts͟ in a particular product or service
sector.

Alternatively, they may drill through customer feedback ratings to secure

confidence from the experience of other purchasers.

In a very short space of time they have sufficient information to form a pretty
thorough arms length view of the seller or provider of services. If they do not
like what they read then they simply move on until they find a seller or
provider that ticks all their selection boxes.

In the past two years the social media have evolved to offer yet another vital
medium whereby the online shopper is able to link with either or all of their
Linked In/Facebook/Twitter communities to gain feedback from their followers
about a certain product or service they intend to purchase.

They are also increasing likely to use these communities to secure feedback
about the business ethics of an individual or business seller. Even the customer
feedback ratings of sellers listing with Trade Me can be regarded as a social
media collective view.

Online shoppers typically have two questions they want answers for:
  
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