E-business success is attributed to establishment of a long term relationship with customers. Few terms of customer engagement have undergone a change in their application and presentation.

The most important factors to engage a customer are loyalty, word of mouth and cross selling. Factors like personalization of customer experience, identification of innovative users, quality, and engaging customer through graphical, information rich content also play an important role in retention of a customer. Ethical and green practices and effective customer management is the key to efficient customer engagement.

Loyalty has evolved and gone above collection of points. Loyalty in e-commerce requires a reward in the form of discounts or special offers. It is brand building and more of user experience with the brand. Samples and trial offers form the basis of loyalty to provide a distinct advantage for the customer with respect to other users.

Word of mouth has moved from tell a friend concept to social networking. It is a prerequisite for the business to be part of a social space, widget and employ social tools to keep in touch with the consumer base.

Cross selling practices have changed into more interactive sessions. Customers are prompted with more engaging terms and activities to increase the participation and contribution. When the customer purchases apparel, jewelry items are marketed as a look good factor. More strategies in the form of exclusive recommendations, customer related matches, quick additions engage the customer effectively. History of customers’ views of products reminds the customer of his previous interest in the products and provides the customer with a personalized experience.