Enhancing eCommerce ROI through Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)

Enhancing eCommerce ROI through
Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)
By Andrea Simmons
A White Paper from Integration New Media
Integration New Media, Inc.1600 Rene-Levesque Blvd W, Suite 900Montreal, QC H3H 1P9CanadaTel.: +1 514 871 1333Fax: +1 514 871 9251www.INM.comEnhancing eCommerce ROI through Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) Enhancing eCommerce ROI through Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)
Introduction
For years, retailers have experienced double-digit growth in online sales. In many cases, just being online with a working web store guaranteed decent sales numbers. However, as the market has begun to mature, the growth rates are beginning to plateau and will slow down over the next 3-4 years. JupiterResearch predicts that US retail e-commerce sales growth will slide from 16% in 2007 to just 18% in 2011. To remain competitive in this market, retailers need to increase "Over the next client conversion and decrease drop-off. In addition, they must take four years retail e-customers away from competitors, motivate them to spend more and commerce sales will retain their loyalty. With the total number of online shoppers expected be driven more by to peak at about 156 million in the next five years, it will be essential current online buyers for retailers to have a strategy in place to drive repeat business. increasing their spending than by new One way retailers are looking to gain this necessary competitive online buyers shopping advantage is by changing their clients' shopping experiences. The for the first time," limitations that retailers have faced in differentiating themselves - Jeffrey Grau, senior online, both in terms of technology and client acceptance, are slowly analyst at eMarketerdropping. In addition, many retailers today have collected the data and have the business intelligence to understand their clients' behaviors. They have ideas about how to differentiate their brands and reflect the nuances of the retail experience electronically, as they have with their traditional stores.
The challenge for retailers lies in balancing eCommerce spending, typically 5-8% of their total sales 2volume and deployment times with return on their investments. This balance is a critical one, as it can make or break a company.
This paper will look at the benefits of adding richness to eCommerce process, including the impact that this change can have on a retailer's bottom line. In addition, it will present options for moving forward that leverage current technology investments to provide retailers with the biggest bang for the smallest investment.
What Are Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)?
Rich internet applications combine many of the features and functionality of desktop applications, but are delivered over the web. These applications combine the best of both worlds - the power and rich content of the desktop with the connectivity of the internet.
The key differentiator between an RIA and a website is that an RIA is focused on a task. When you apply this in the context of eCommerce, that task is typically focused around finding, customizing, and ultimately purchasing a product.
Another difference with RIAs is the way they handle and process information. Traditional desktop applications today rely exclusively on client-side processing. When a task is initiated, the local system's resources are leveraged to process the request. In contrast, a web application relies exclusively on the server-side technology to process a request. With RIAs the load is shared by both client-side and server-side technology.
© Integration New Media, Inc. 2007 2 © Integration New Media, Inc. 2007 3Enhancing eCommerce ROI through Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) Enhancing eCommerce ROI through Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)
With an HTML website, when a user fills in data, changes options, or checks boxes, the page must be submitted to the server for "Rich Internet data validation and then the screen is reloaded with the new data Applications improve incorporated. This model is the basis for many eCommerce sites our product display today. Users navigate through a series of pages to find the products capacity because we they want and another series of pages to actually buy them. are presenting the customer with a better With RIAs, the data is partially processed by the client, so a full shopping experience page... [download for more]