During the first ten years of eCommerce, most websites grew quickly by tapping into the endless flow of new online shoppers – with consumers being drawn to the intrinsic convenience of this new way to shop. However, due to assumed constraints, technology limitations and inadequate resources, the vast majority of eCommerce sites still seem to offer a surprisingly similar, utilitarian shopping experience.

While retail stores and catalogs offer uniquely good experiences, I believe that eCommerce is still just scraping the surface of its potential. As I have spent time with various folks in the industry this year, it has become clear that the leaders and innovators are now “loading the cannon” to bring some dramatic changes to win and differentiate in the next phase.

Thus, I have been doing a little side project to synthesize expected changes and look for tangible evidence that such changes will actually happen…

At the recent Shop.org annual summit, we had a terrific panel discussion with Sears, QVC and Nike on this topic. We discussed five key principles that we expect to emerge over the coming 12-24 months to enhance customer experiences and improve differentiation. In summary…

1. A departure from the “original” shopping metaphor (improving upon the linear ‘home page’, ‘thumbnail’ page, ‘product page’, ‘shopping cart’, ‘check out’ paradigm)
2. Relevant information… at the right time (key information earlier in process – and specific to a given customer – to support more successful shopping missions)
3. Consumer empowerment and guidance (movement away from merchants guessing at what ‘typical’ consumer wants – such as product categories, item presentation, featured items, etc. – and instead letting each consumer define their own experience; plus providing consumer thoughtful product recommendations and style guidance based on their input)
4. Content becomes the interface (glorify the content itself, reducing today’s dominance of navigation and buttons, leverage new metaphors like ‘drag and drop’ to interact directly with the content)
5. Fun and entertainment factor… and we also visited several websites where we saw “glimmers” of some of these principles already being put into action.

Some of the sites included:

• www.nike.com (re-engineered the entire shopping experience for consumer control, key information early with focus on great content)
• www.gucci.com (totally new metaphor, appropriate for this brand)
• http://www.panic.com/goods/ (new metaphor with drag and drop shopping)
• www.gymboree.com (try ‘my Gymboree’)
• http://www.sherwin-williams.com/do_it_yourself/ (Select ‘launch color visualizer’)