In Support of Articulate Writing

[taysteewonderbunny]

Here's one: Spelling mistakes responsible for lost internet revenue?

Spelling mistakes 'cost millions' in lost online sales

By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent

Customer spending on a website can be cut in half by a spelling mistake, says an online businessman An online entrepreneur says that poor spelling is costing the UK millions of pounds in lost revenue for internet businesses. Charles Duncombe says an analysis of website figures shows a single spelling mistake can cut online sales in half. Mr. Duncombe says when recruiting staff he has been "shocked at the poor quality of written English".

Sales figures suggest misspellings put off consumers who could have concerns about a website's credibility, he says.

The concerns were echoed by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), whose head of education and skills warned that too many employers were having to invest in remedial literacy lessons for their staff.

Mr. Duncombe, who runs travel, mobile phones and clothing websites, says that poor spelling is a serious problem for the online economy.

"Often these cutting-edge companies depend upon old-fashioned skills," says Mr Duncombe. And he says that the struggle to recruit enough staff who can spell means that this sector of the economy is not as efficient as it might be.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics published last month showed internet sales in the UK running at £527m per week.

"I know that industry bemoaning the education system is nothing new but it is becoming more and more of a problem with more companies going online. This is because when you sell or communicate on the internet, 99% of the time it is done by the written word."

Mr. Duncombe says that it is possible to identify the specific impact of a spelling mistake on sales. He says he measured the revenue per visitor to the tightsplease.co.uk website and found that the revenue was twice as high after an error was corrected.

"If you project this across the whole of internet retail, then millions of pounds worth of business is probably being lost each week due to simple spelling mistakes," says Mr. Duncombe, director of the Just Say Please group.

Spelling is important to the credibility of a website, he says. When there are underlying concerns about fraud and safety, then getting the basics right is essential.

When recruiting school and university leavers, Mr. Duncombe says too many applications have contained spelling mistakes or poor grammar. "Some people even used text speak in their cover letter," he says.

Even among those who appeared to be able to spell, he says that a written test, without access to a computer spellchecker, revealed further problems with spelling.

William Dutton, director of the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, says that in some informal parts of the internet, such as Facebook, there is greater tolerance towards spelling and grammar.

"However, there are other aspects, such as a home page or commercial offering that are not among friends and which raise concerns over trust and credibility," said Professor Dutton. "In these instances, when a consumer might be wary of spam or phishing efforts, a misspelt word could be a killer issue."

James Fothergill, the CBI's head of education and skills, said: "Our recent research shows that 42% of employers are not satisfied with the basic reading and writing skills of school and college leavers and almost half have had to invest in remedial training to get their staff's skills up to scratch. This situation is a real concern and the government must make the improvement of basic literacy and numeracy skills of all school and college leavers a top priority."

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Interesting article. Despite not being a grammar Nazi I do support their efforts for the most part.

I know when reading through a website, I'm less likely to take it seriously if there are clear spelling / grammar errors. That might lead me either to not buy from them or if the primary point of the place is journalism or some such, lead me to perhaps not return , or not recommend it to others. Then as that article references, to combat that, you need to try and find people that CAN spell / write, and if they are in short supply that just compounds the problem from the companies side.

Just as a general idea, people tend to take what you say more seriously and typically can UNDERSTAND what your saying far more clearly if you at least put some small effort into not totally responding like a monkey. Also like it or not, people tend to equate maturity (or lack of it) with your ability to communicate especially when they don't know much about the writer, not that I think that is fair per se, it is just a fact.

Unfortunately for me my spelling and grammar leave much to be desired.

[Slogo]

uh ohs. This thread will be not good, be not good at ever I tells ya

[Simon Bar Sinister]

^ wha'chu talkin bout, willis?

[Troy Spiral (13)]

http://www.detroitgothic.net/index.php?showtopic=35617