The Power of 1-Click

When you think about e-commerce and online ordering, without a doubt there are two kings that rule this world. Amazon and Apple. How big? In 2009 Amazon's net sales increased 28% to 24.51 billion dollars. For 2010 they're averaging about 65 million hits per month. iTunes statistics are just as amazing. In February of this year, Apple sold it's 10 billionth song. On January 5th, it had it's 3 billionth app downloaded. In 2009, iTunes generated just over 1.8 billion dollars in revenue.

One of the reasons for the success of these two sites is how easy it is for a customer to buy their products. If you have an account at Amazon, it is literally as easy to buy as 1-Click, talk about your impulse buy! In fact, Amazon has a patent on the term 1-Click and licenses that patent to Apple.

I can attest through my own experience how powerful that is. When I find a book I want to read on Amazon and I decide I want to buy it, I click on the "1-Click" icon and it literally downloads it to my Kindle. On my iPhone, I can hear a song on the radio and use and app to find out what that song is and simply click buy and it downloads it from iTunes instantly onto my phone.

My question to you as a retailer, is to look at how easy it is for your customers to buy your product, whether it's in the store or on-line? How many times have you walked out of a store because the line up was to long? How many times have you aborted a purchase online because of how many steps you have to take to complete the purchase?

If you want an example of how frustrating an online buying experience can be, try ordering a flight on Westjet and pay for your flight with a credit card. Not only do I have to put in my information, I have to then get my card "verified" by another credit card service that requires another password. Through my various bookings on Westjet it quite often makes me jump through this hoop even though I've saved my info. I have also booked on Air Canada when they've had the same seat price just because I didn't want to go through this hassle.

How important is this from an e-commerce standpoint? According to a recent Goldman Sachs report e-retail will grow at 5 times the rate of traditional retail. Online sales are currently $134.9 billion but are expected to grow to $624 billion by 2020. Where is your company positioned to capture a piece of this money?

Please let me know which sites you enjoy buying from and which ones you don't. I'd like to hear your opinions.