According to a new survey from IBM, today’s consumer wants online retailers to be more interactive and offer more personalised features.

The past few years have seen a change in your average customer; they are wiser and they make more informed buying decisions. Today’s consumer wants to use technology to exchange information with others, make purchases-on-the-go and shop multiple channels at a time.

Over 75% of consumers want to use websites to print off coupons and they want to use their mobile phones to find out where their nearest store is located – 66% want to check if items are in stock before they even go to a store.

With all this access to technology and information, it is no wonder that consumers have all the power. Online businesses cannot afford to sit still and do nothing as this happens; instead they must give the customer what they want whilst also exploring new and different ways to satisfy their customer before someone else does.

According to the report, the top areas of improvement for online retailers are: offering customised promotions and ensuring product availability. Over 50% of those surveyed said they would spend more with a retailer if they got these two things right.

So if you want to improve the conversion rate on your website, keep the opinion of your potential customers in mind and try your best to give them exactly what they want - for their benefit and for yours.