In this article for the IT section of the Herald, Stephan Spencer is asked for his opinion on the comparatively low uptake of ecommerce in New Zealand…
Stephan Spencer, founder of Auckland web development company Netconcepts, agrees building an effective website is costly and says local e-tailers focused on a global market have been stung by the strong New Zealand dollar in recent years.
“There are a lot of improvements that could be made to Kiwi e-commerce websites in regard to usability, although there are some great examples of Kiwi websites that are doing a great job.”
Spencer says e-tailers in markets such as the United States have better access to industry research findings and forums. In a larger market they can also experiment more, tweaking their sites to find out what appeals most to shoppers.
He says local operators are also not as advanced as US sites when it comes to search engine optimisation: the process of designing a website to rank highly for searches by Google or other search engines.
Spread the word: 
