Social features move up in priority for e-commerce sites 22 February, 2009 By Chris Talbot

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The likely reason for this switch is that businesses spent 2008 deployed rich media applications, and now they're turning to focus on social features. Of the various features available, the top features planned for deployment in 2009 are blogs (32 percent), user ratings, rankings, comments (31 percent), 360-degree spin (29 percent), catalogs and circulars (28 percent), podcasts or live video feed (28 percent), product comparisons (27 percent), and videos (27 percent). All of the top features fell into social and rich media categories.

"It was kind of a mix between social features, with blogs and user ratings coming up high in plans for the next 12 months for all these respondents, and more of the sort of rich media type of functionality, with video," said Sheila Dahlgren, director of marketing for Adobe Scene7 products.

In terms of effectiveness, many of the same types of features were indicated as being "very effective," with 38 percent pointing to the ability to zoom in on images and 36 percent indicating user ratings.

"Interesting enough, they were very much in the rich media area, as well as social, and that may be because they are also one of the top deployed," Dahlgren said.

Search results and landing pages were also highly ranked as being very effective for e-commerce sites.

"To see the product basically on the site ... as well as getting reviews from third parties -- other people besides the merchant itself. User generated comments are very, very helpful. Amazon pioneered that concept years and years ago," Dahlgren said. She noted that a lot of e-commerce sites still have not implemented user rankings, rankings or comments.

Other areas were much further down the list of priorities. Dahlgren said it was disappointing to see personalization as being relatively flat compared to last year's survey, but the likely reason for its lack of use is the technology still isn't quite there to properly capture and use data from consumers, she said.

"We think that's why it's relatively flat and under-utilized now. It can be highly effective, but it's hard to do and hard to implement now," she said. She noted it's another area that Amazon has pioneered.

Another area that's still up-and-coming is mobility, but like personalization, the technology isn't quite there yet.

As with other types of technology deployments, the economy is having an impact on e-commerce sites. Investments in new e-commerce technologies is often being pushed out by businesses by six months, Dahlgren said.

"Web marketing continues to be an area of investment and innovation because in challenging economic times it can deliver high-impact marketing programs that can be easily and immediately measured," said Doug Mack, vice president of consumer and hosted solutions at Adobe. "Over 90 percent of our survey's respondents are planning to invest in new rich media and social networking technologies to ensure their brands and products stand out on the Web."