Welcome to Maturing Web Analytics. This article is for everyone who, after reading Beginning Web Analytics, following the links, and setting up your own web analytics, now want to take the next step. You have plenty of data filtering in now, so the question becomes, how can I turn this data into profit?

The Decline of Customer Service and the Rise of Self-Service

New technologies allow consumers to freely explore seemingly endless amounts of products and information online. Because of this, consumers are becoming increasingly self-reliant. People check-in to flights and hotels with automated machines and purchase groceries through check-out stations. Consumers are responding positively to self-service systems and the need to interact with customer service employees is rapidly decreasing.

For many people, web analytics is a scary term, conjuring up mental images of failed math classes. That’s probably what brought you here: You were pondering methods of bringing more traffic to your website when someone brought up the term “web analytics“, and all of the sudden those nightmares kicked in.

But when you recovered, as the serious eCommerce entrepreneur you are, you got online with the goal of looking the term up. And now you’re here, you’re interested, and you’re a little confused. What are web analytics? Are they really worth investing in? What are they going to cost me? How much time do they take?

For many retailers, there is no hotter word right now than mobile commerce. Many big name companies have already launched mobile sites and features for their brand and the buzz may entice smaller businesses to quickly jump on the mobile bandwagon. However, before even putting together a mobile strategy, there are several factors to consider.

You don’t need a degree in design to craft a strong user experience. While a professional may know a lot more than you do about crafting a functional and beautiful website – that is their job after all – not everyone can afford this expertise, especially when first starting out. However, instead of struggling along with a poor UX until you can afford to hire a design company, lets talk about a few simple ways you can make your website more user friendly.

Not long ago, social commerce was merely an abstract concept with a questionable future in eCommerce. Now, nearly every retailer knows that engaging online consumers is an essential part of business. Companies are eager to start the conversation with their customers and get the customers talking to each other.

Welcome to Beginning UX, a series dealing with the importance of crafting a strong user experience – and why, no matter how amazing your product is, it’s worth learning the techniques necessary to take your website from the most basic level of user friendly design all the way to incorporation of social media and more.

PowerReviews was founded in 2005 by Andrew Chen and Robert Chea and is now considered to be a leading provider of social commerce solutions. The company has helped hundreds of retailers engage customers and build communities online. Internet Retailer included the company in 2009’s Top 500 Solutions Winner. Sites such as RadioShack, Diapers.com, TicketsNow, and Orbitz and many more are using customer reviews systems provided by PowerReviews.

Back in September 07′ we covered Lemonade’s launch, and business model in detail so I won’t be going into too much about the company here as with some of our other comparison shopping interviews. I have enjoyed watching the growth of Lemonade’s application, brand and user base. They seem to have found a perfect fit in between the eCommerce and affiliate spaces.

Shopping.com is an eBay company as of August 2005 and is considered to be one of the original pioneers of comparison shopping and online product search. Since launching, Shopping.com has grown beyond expectations and continues to remain among the fastest growing, most visited eCommerce shopping engines available today. Shopping.com offers services for both consumers and merchants including powerful search tools, technology and unbiased reviews for millions of products, thousands of brands and several top online and brick-and-mortar retailers.

Shopping.com has expanded their operations globally and are now able to offer their innovative shopping services and tools in several different languages and countries worldwide including the U.K., Germany, France, Australia, Ireland and more to come.