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Web Shoppers Looking for More on the Internet
By Jim Ostroff July 10, 2006

Retailers of all stripes can expect to see their online sales grow next year. More shoppers are tossing a wider array of products into their virtual baskets as they become more at ease shopping online. The rapid spread of high-speed connections and retailers' efforts to make their Web sites more user friendly are also big reasons online shopping is becoming more mainstream.

Web sales of everything from apples to zinnias will climb 20% this year over last and another 20% next year, when Internet sales will top $250 billion, nearing double digits as a share of the $2.9 trillion in total retail sales. "Now that people have had a good experience in buying a video, software or a book online and realize there are no hassles in doing returns, they're buying products they usually wanted to see and feel" in a store, says Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, an online retail sales trade and research group.

Some of the more surprising products now catching fire online, according to Forrester Research, are autos and auto parts, up 14% so far this year over last; home appliances, up 26%; jewelry, 17%; and cosmetics, 33%.

More-interactive Web sites are a big draw. Just a photo of the item for sale and its price won't cut it anymore. To boost sales, savvy merchants are providing 360-degree views of merchandise, posting product reviews—good and bad—from previous customers and staffing their sites with knowledgeable salespeople who can reply instantly to a shopper's questions online or even by phone once a customer clicks an on-screen call button.

Sophisticated Web sites aren't just for the big boys anymore. A variety of companies, including Amazon Web Services, Fry Inc. and GSI Commerce, can create them for just about any retailer at affordable rates. Yahoo Small Business provides off-the-shelf designs and support from $39.95 a month plus 1.5% of each sale for the most basic type of site to $99.95 a month for sites with nearly every option available. For those wanting to outsource virtually everything about their Web sites except ringing up the sale and filling product orders, a company such as Demandware can help. It promises to keep updating sites with the latest

innovations so retailers won't fall behind their competition. Retailers pay an annual subscription fee based on their revenues.

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