Hot lines and hot links are among the tactics retailers are using to draw consumers into their World Wide Web home pages and encourage repeat visits. But keeping the information current is the biggest challenge.
By peppering the electronic pages with graphics heralding "Coming Soon!" and "New," retailers set up
the expectation that fresh information is only a click away. However, when that command leads to information that's out of date, or an area that's "under construction" -- not active -- it can be as offputting as E-mail gone unanswered.
Those who are learning what works -- and what doesn't -- when it comes to capturing and holding the consumer's attention on the Internet advise constant tracking of the site, and their advice is: "Be responsive."
"A web page has got to have day-to-day monitoring and be updated as often as possible," said Bernie Rogan, spokesman at Shaw's Supermarkets, East Bridgewater, Mass. "I used to turn on the Dow Jones news retrieval first thing; now I turn on the home page as soon as I come in."
"The ability to quickly update information as it becomes available or necessary is critical for an organization dedicated to customers who shop on average once a week," Philip Francis, Shaw's president and chief executive officer, said in a statement upon the launch of the chain's web site last month.
The web page launched by Food Lion, Salisbury, N.C., is updated frequently, said Chris Ahearn, spokeswoman.
"One of the 'freshest' areas is Food Lion's news update button, which is updated as soon as new information about the company, stores, products and technology is released," she said. "That's a continual process."
Hot lines to industry experts who can answer nutritional and food preparation questions and hot links to other food and nonfood pages are two ways that retailers are bringing "fresh" information to their sites without spending more money on staff and other resources.
Under its "What's New" banner, the web site maintained by Kroger Co., Cincinnati, responds to consumers' frequently asked questions through a "FAQ Line" staffed by industry experts.
H.E. Butt Grocery Co., San Antonio, which maintains several separate but linked sites, offers consumers a forum to discuss a wide range of topics from cooking tips to the moral fabric of various presidential nominees. In the chain's Central Market home page, for example, the "Texas Talk" section works much like Internet news groups where visitors post comments and respond to other users' postings.
The interactive nature of such services keeps the site active and attractive for subsequent visits, retailers told SN. Another way to bring breadth and depth to the web visit is to establish links to other sites within the vast Internet network.
Although some companies fear hot-linking to other, more interesting sites may put them at risk of losing their audience, others do not.
"I want people to hot-link out of our page. I want them to come to our page in the first place and know that we will have the best hot links," said Keith Kersten, vice president of sales and food processing at Byerly's, Edina, Minn.
Byerly's is already hot-linked to pages established by Ben & Jerry's, Ragu, Hershey's and Dole, among others, and is hoping to create gateways to the Organic Alliance, Caribou Coffee and Bachman's florist.
"We want top-of-mind awareness. If somebody has a food question, we want them to think: 'www.byerlys.com,' " he said in reference to the company's new web site address.
Randalls Food Markets, Houston, is another firm believer in the added dimension good hot links can bring to a retailer's web site.
The chain operates separate pages for both Randalls and its Tom Thumb Food & Pharmacy division, Dallas.
Information contained in the pages is updated frequently, sometimes daily, according to Emmett Yuchnewicz, web production manager.
"My idea of keeping it fresh is interconnecting with as many pages as possible," he said. "For example, we have a hot link with the American Diabetes Association so people can get more information."
Randalls, which sells Sony movie tickets in store courtesy booths, will soon link up with Sony's home page. The chain also sells fishing licenses, which made its hot link with the Texas Parks and Wildlife page a natural fit.
"We've also got a hot link with the Metro bus line, whose home page gives you the bus schedule, traffic reports -- everything," he added.
"Several people I've talked to are concerned that consumers might leave their pages" in favor of other, more attractive sites, Yuchnewicz said. "But to me, that's being closed-minded. The whole idea of the Internet is to be entwined with one another, to interlink with people all over the world.
"You've got to keep their interest. If that means taking the chance of losing them to another page, you've got to take that chance," he added.
"People are not going to want to go to a page if they can't get out or move around easily."
Indeed, flexibility constraints as well as dated web page content or bald sales pitches to "buy our product" will quickly send viewers scrambling for the exit. The excitement swirling around the World Wide Web over the past 12 months has set up high expectations among consumers who can be impatient and easily abandon a page that disappoints them.
If "under construction" signs send viewers on a detour to someone else's page, then an electronic mail feature that goes unsupported is the open manhole cover -- a risky move to be avoided at all costs, retailers told SN.
Shaw's home page does not offer visitors the option of sending E-mail because the company is not yet ramped up to sufficiently handle the response, Rogan said.
"You don't want to build up anticipation which you can't perform to," Rogan said. "We're not going to do it until we can respond adequately."
Unacknowledged consumer E-mail is a cardinal sin, retailers agreed, and can hurt not only the web page project, but the business as well.
Scolari's Food & Drug Co., Sparks, Nev., initially planned to offer an E-mail option on its web page, but thought better of it.
"We thought, 'Oh, that would be great: Let's have E-mail so people can give us their comments.' Then we thought about how many comments we might have to deal with on a daily basis. And who's going to do that?" said Jackie Shelton, vice president of Minor Advertising, Reno, Nev., which maintains Scolari's web site.
"You can hurt yourself. If someone E-mails a complaint and they don't get a response, it's going to be worse than if they didn't have that option," she added.
Jan Gilbert, vice president of buying and merchandising at Scolari's, added, "I think there's a lot of people rushing into this. I'm not sure they have clearly defined their objectives."
Kersten of Byerly's agreed: "We will have E-mail, but not until I have the infrastructure to answer every question within 48 hours," he said.
One Internet service provider who maintains a web page for an East Coast chain said retailers may have the best intentions in offering E-mail, but most are not prepared to support it today.
"I don't think retailers are ready and some are being surprised by the volume of E-mail and they are getting caught off guard," the source said. "You know how irritating it is to send a message and not get a response."
A practical solution is to set up an automatic response mechanism that acknowledges every E-mail message quickly. The web page set up for the White House has such a system.
"So consumers at least get a response that says, 'Got your message. Thanks for sending it. If it's something that needs to be taken care of, we are working on it and will get back to you as soon as we can.' "
H-E-B is among the few retailers whose web page enables consumers to talk to one another through bulletin board postings. The interactive feature is in keeping with the Central Market site's social atmosphere, including a nightly schedule of musical acts performing in the store's cafe.
Taking In the Sites
Retailers are taking up residence on the World Wide Web at an impressive rate. Below are the Internet addresses of retailers featured in the story on this page.
