Specifications

Simpler or cheaper options include
Examining Server Logs: Web servers store a lot of data about every request from
your server. Much of this data is useless, and its sheer bulk makes it useless in its raw
form. To distill your log files into a meaningful summary, you need a log file analyzer.
Two of the better-known free programs are Analog, which is available from http://
www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/analog, and Webalizer, available from
http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/. Commercial programs such as Summary, avail-
able from http://summary.net, might be more comprehensive. A log file analyzer will
show you how traffic to your site changes over time and what pages are being viewed.
Monitoring Sales: Your online brochure is supposed to generate sales. You should be
able to estimate its effect on sales by comparing sales levels before and after the launch
of the site. This obviously becomes difficult if other kinds of marketing cause fluctua-
tions in the same period.
Soliciting User Feedback: If you ask them, your users will tell you what they think of
your site. Providing a feedback form or email address will gather some useful opinions.
To increase the quantity of feedback, you might like to offer a small inducement, such as
entry into a prize draw for all respondents.
Surveying Representative Users: Holding focus groups can be an effective technique
for evaluating your site, or even a prototype of your intended site. To conduct a focus
group, you simply need to gather some volunteers, encourage them to evaluate the site,
and then interview them to gauge and record their opinions.
Focus groups can be expensive affairs, conducted by professional facilitators, who evaluate and
screen potential participants to try to ensure that they accurately represent the spread of demo-
graphics and personalities in the wider community and then skillfully interview participants.
Focus groups can also cost nothing, be run by an amateur, and be populated by a sample of
people whose relevance to the target market is unknown.
Paying a specialist market research company is one way to get a well-run focus group, and get
useful results, but it is not the only way. If you are running your own focus groups, choose a
skilful moderator. The moderator should have excellent people skills and not have a bias or
stake in the result of the research. Limit group sizes to six to ten people. The moderator should
be assisted by a recorder or secretary to leave the moderator free to facilitate discussion. The
result that you get from your groups will only be as relevant as the sample of people you use.
If you evaluate your product only with friends and family of your staff, they are unlikely to
represent the general community.
Taking Orders for Goods or Services
If your online advertising is compelling, the next logical step is to allow your customers to
order while still online. Traditional salespeople know that it is important to get the customer to
Running an E-commerce Site
C
HAPTER 12
12
RUNNING AN
E-COMMERCE SITE
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