Online Shoppers Aren't Impulsive

Rollie Hawk writes "When it comes to online shoppers, conventional wisdom has long been divided. Some have argued that the instant nature of shopping from home over the Internet leads to quick purchases while others have contended that easy price comparisons on the Web allow buyers to do more research first. For now, it looks like the latter camp is closer to the truth. According to a press release by ScanAlert, online shoppers are more frugal than many retailers previously thought. According to their testing, 35% take more than 12 hours to make a purchase, 21% take more than three days, and 14% take more than a week. On the average, online shoppers take 19 hours to make a purchase after the initial visit. This has some important marketing ramifications according to ScanAlert CEO Ken Leonard. "The implication to merchants is that the shopping cart is not just a convenience factor. It must be a comfort zone to shoppers. These results were not expected." In the press release, Leonard advised online sellers that "consumers abandon shopping carts with an ease that frustrates and often confuses online retailers. Retailers must understand, however, that almost half of all online purchases are from shoppers who leave a site after the first visit, and return -- even days later -- to buy.""

Comments

Makes sense

[LiENUS]

This makes sense. When I worked at a phone answering job where I took orders, a lot of people would call up ask for information then hang up to order it on line. People use the Internet to order at their convenience rather than at the convenience of the seller.

Re:Heard that before

[flyingsquid]

I'm dumbfounded that online sellers compare an eCart to a real shopping trolley.

It's less effort to fill up a virtual shopping cart, and there's no issue with just walking away from it. Nothing says I can't pull a hundred items off the shelf at Safeway and then leave my cart in the isle, but it'll get me looked at funny and I'd feel guilty about making the staff restock everything. I have no qualms with wasting the time of a computer, though. So yeah, surprise surprise, the virtual metaphor ain't like the real thing.

Re:Heard that before

[silentbozo]

"consumers abandon shopping carts with an ease that frustrates and often confuses online retailers"

Consumers abandon shopping carts? What about when I spend an hour shopping, have to go away for a day or so, and when I come back, my shopping cart has been deleted on the server-side? Now THAT's frustrating!

A few more thoughts for on-line vendors:

[frovingslosh]

Significant and even over priced shipping shipping costs often cause buyers to wait to "put together" orders.

Personally, if I can't determine the exact shipping cost before I give my name and address (and maybe even my credit card number), then I go elsewhere.

If the site sets an over priced shipping cost for each item and just adds the shipping costs together if multiple items are bought (greatly inflating prices from the actual shipping cost), I'm inclined to not buy from them at all, but certainly I will not be buying a lot.

Because buyers do shop, it is extremely helpful for both buyer and seller to have real time inventory information posted on the website and actually show the buyer how many of an item are available. More than once a vendor has lost a complete sale when I saw an item I wanted but waited until I could order some other items also, had put several items in my "cart", and then gone to add the item that I really wanted and that had induced me to buy from them, only to find that it was no longer in stock. Had I been able to see inventory numbers I might have known it was selling out and bought faster, instead I just dropped my entire combined order. Even worse are vendors who you can't tell if the item is in stock or not from an on-line website in this computer age.

The seller who charges actual shipping costs, or even actual shipping costs plus a buck or two for costs like the box, if far more likely to gey my business and repeat business than the seller who looks at shipping as a profit center.

Sellers who play games with shipping costs by greatly varying them for very similar size and weight items (you know who you are, Newegg) actually discourage a lot of sales. Why it costs $2.99 to ship some pcmcia cards, even $1.00 to ship some, but $5 to ship others that are on the same size box and of the same weight makes no sense at all (and even less sense if I want to buy 4 and the shipping jumps to %20).