The business has been penny wise and pound foolish

. . . said Peter Matthews in the seminar session on "Taking your website to the next level."

True?

The sentiment was recently shared by Forrester's travel analyst Henry Harteveldt. The "'We don't have the money' excuse is . . . wearing a bit thin," he wrote. "In fact, one must question the wisdom of travel companies that chose not to invest in [online marketing and] merchandising technologies: How much more money could travel sellers have earned had they done so?"

I think they're right. When a 1/2 percent increase in online bookings can mean millions, and with abandonment rates embarassingly high, it literally doesn't pay to scrimp on technologies (and/or services such as user experience analysis and personna creation) that are very likely to improve the customer experience.

My guess is that many companies think such investements must be justified by savings in process times and the overall costs of running the site(s) -- spend (only) in order to save. The problem is that the history of the web constantly shows that the winners are those who spend in order to earn.