Price and convenience drive almost half of British shoppers to increase spending, but one third abandon baskets

Price and convenience drive almost half of British shoppers to increase spending, but one third abandon baskets

New research has revealed that 44% of Britain’s online adult population upped their online spending during Christmas 2010 compared to 2009.

This increased appetite for online spending pushed the total amount spent online to £2.8 billion, according to customer experience management software vendor Tealeaf.

It commissioned YouGov research of over 2,000 adults from 27 to 29 December 2010, and found convenience (58%), stress reduction (52%) and cheaper prices (52%) were the top reasons for doing more shopping on the web.

However, many websites failed to live up to this increased e-commerce appetite, where 45% of web shoppers encountered online issues this Christmas and almost a third (32%) abandoned internet transactions entirely.

Need to improve payment process

Tealeaf’s research found the majority of online shoppers ditched their baskets due to issues with the purchasing or checkout process. Problems and errors on a website were a key area of customer struggle, causing 13%, or 5.3 million online consumers, to abandon their purchases. Delivery prices (13%) and timings (8%) also contributed to this problem, as shoppers searched for companies who could fulfil by Christmas.

When asked how they would react if they experienced a problem online, 46% of the UK shoppers questioned said they would be less likely to buy from that company again. Almost one in ten (9%) also agreed they have shared online shopping experiences via social media, which Tealeaf said doesn’t bode well for those websites offering a less than adequate service. A further 34% also said they wouldn’t buy from a site they had heard negative things about.

John Lillie, vice president of Tealeaf, commented: “Online retailers take a significant proportion of their annual revenues in the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy. Despite the potential gains up for grabs, retailers without a cohesive customer experience management strategy in place are still literally putting obstacles in the way of their customers successfully buying from them, in the form of unattended website errors and complicated checkout processes. In addition to denting e-commerce revenues in the short term, these avoidable mistakes are also damaging consumer trust, as well as brand reputation, leading to long-term revenue losses.”