E-commerce: stay and chat a while

The last thing you might expect when shopping online is for a salesperson to start talking to you. But some e-commerce Web sites are adding live text chat to keep would-be customers from clicking elsewhere. You don't have to seek help; it's offered while you window shop. As reports, the vast majority of Web surfers leaves a shopping page before buying anything. Half of visitors to commercial sites even bother to fill up a shopping cart, but then abandon it. As Inc. suggests, if your company wants to keep customers' attention with onscreen chatting, just make sure that they'll feel helped, not harassed.