Online shopping made easy with digitalmall.com`s `LiveHelp`

The new digitalmall.com is making online shopping a lot easier and simpler with `LiveHelp`, a first in South Africa.

It is estimated that in the US alone, 70% of all consumers shopping online, abandon their baskets before completing the purchase. This is largely due to consumers not finding what they need on the site or getting lost or confused while navigating.

"LiveHelp, which is driven by digitalmall.com`s Virtual Call Centre, provides that trust-factor by offering assistance from a service consultant who will respond according to consumer requests via the Web, telephone, fax or email," explained Garin Toren, marketing director of digitalmall.com. "LiveHelp is a real-time electronic interactive assistant that promotes a trusting relationship with the consumer, ensuring that goods are purchased as effortlessly as possible. When requested, it carries the consumer through the entire purchasing process, assisting them in finding the right item, selecting it, and adding it to their shopping basket," he added.

With LiveHelp activated, the service consultant is able to view, from their help-desk, exactly what the consumer sees on their screen. This enables the consultant to push relevant information, product pages or URLs` to the consumer.

For example, you may be looking for the latest Canon camera. When you click on LiveHelp and type in your request, a text message telling you where to find this information will be send to you, or the relevant page with all the necessary pricing, product pictures and reviews will be pushed onto your screen. This reduces time and streamlines the shopping process, reducing frustration and abandonment of the shopping session.

Integrated within LiveHelp is a `funky` young cyber figure called Hannah, an online assistant. Each retailer in the digitalmall.com stable features Hannah, and in keeping with the retailing theme, she will be accessorised according to the environment she finds herself, whether in Incredible Connection, Reggies, Yo Sushi, Click & Pay, Liquoronline, Wordsworth Books or the Virtual Florist. When requested, she pops up onto your browser and assists you by providing a running commentary of your shopping process or a link to LiveHelp, which then puts you in contact with the service consultant.

"LiveHelp and Hannah are only part of a range of new and exciting features that have been built into the new digitalmall.com. These features combine the old principles of retail shopping with that of the new economy, through the integration of various traditional and more current communication mediums including phone, fax, email, the Internet or via mobile devices," Toren explained.