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Retailers can convert 11% more digital window shoppers

Kelvin Divendal — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:54:46 +0000

A McAfee study released today found that a majority of shoppers are “digital window shoppers”. The study of 163 million shopping transactions found that 65% of all shoppers will wait a day or more to complete a purchase. This behavior may appear to be shopping cart abandonment, but it could also be the sign of a cautious shopper. Sales conversions were also 11% higher for digital window shoppers when McAfee’s Trustmark was visible to a consumer.

The top reasons for abandoning shopping carts found in a Paypal survey last July shows similar concerns. 21% of buyers reported that they had stopped shopping on a site because of worries about the security of their credit card data.

McAfee recommends three interesting strategies to combat abandoned shopping carts:

Make consumers feel safe on every page: use transparent privacy policies and security seals throughout the entire shopping experience.
Be patient, don’t panic: there is a risk in approaching shopping cart abandoners too soon. Merchants should factor in realistic timetables for shoppers to complete their transaction.
Optimize the entire site: retailers should not neglect a larger site abandonment and focus only on optimizing check-out.

Women take the lead in online shopping

Niels Hoogendoorn — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:23:30 +0000

Research by Blauw Research for webshop Bol.com has shown that nowadays women account for 51 percent of online buyers where in 1998 nine out of ten online shoppers were male. This shift in gender also influences buying behavior. Internet used to be a male concern, but women have different demands when it comes to e-commerce. Women tend to focus more on product and price orientation. Inspiration and experiences are more important here. The males however, want to choose quicker and therefore require a well-organized shopping process.

The combination of focal points of the different genders is key for today’s webshop development. Special attention for the female approach requires more focus on inspiration and ‘the experience’ during product visualization.

Online shoppers: top reasons for abandoning carts

Kelvin Divendal — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 09:47:14 +0000

Online shoppers cite high shipping costs, a desire to comparison shop and a lack of funds as the top reasons they abandon shopping carts, according to a survey by PayPal, which interviewed 553 active online shoppers in the U.S. who had recently abandoned a shopping cart. But the survey shows many eventually return to the web site to buy, or make a purchase in a bricks-and-mortar store.

“Merchants who don’t welcome back abandoners with open arms are leaving hundreds of dollars per shopper on the table,” says Eddie Davis, senior director of services for small and midsized businesses at PayPal. “Merchants need to remember the items that customers abandon and make it easy for them to buy when they return. Sweetening the deal with free shipping, coupons and special discounts is also a great way to encourage online shoppers to complete their purchases.”

Here are the top reasons survey respondents give for abandoning shopping carts:

E-commerce websites grow despite of crisis

Kelvin Divendal — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:53:01 +0000

Dutch e-commerce websites have grown in the first six months of 2009, despite of the economic crisis. This is shown by research of Multiscope. Not only Bol.com (15%), Neckermann (6%), Otto (7%) and Wehkamp (17%) were able to realize a growth of their reach, but also KPN (10%) and Vodafone (9%) show a strong growth in comparison with 2008.

Consumers more often go online for the purchase of products and services. Motives behind the growth seem to be easy comparison, more choice and more extensive payment- and credit possibilities.

Online shoppers are uniquely loyal

Niels Hoogendoorn — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:00:45 +0000

Consumers tend to stick to what they are familiar with when it comes to online shopping. According to the global online shopping report by Nielsen, 60 percent of online shoppers say they buy mostly from the same site, proving that online shoppers are uniquely loyal.

Personal recommendation

According to the report, over one third of online shoppers use a search engine to find an online shop. Also interesting is that one in four relies on word of mouth.

Open-source webshop application popularity

Niels Hoogendoorn — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:11:00 +0000

What are the most popular shopping cart systems used by webshops? Nowadays, a lot of open-source shopping cart applications are available. We compared the five largest open-source online shopping applications and found some surprising trends.

The graph below shows the systems and their average worldwide traffic (search volume index, scale relative to average Magento figures) according to Google Trends. It’s no hard science, but the outcomes show great shifts over time.

What strikes is the rapid growth of Magento overtaking osCommerce as the largest player. Both systems today account for 26% of the traffic in this research, followed by Interchange (18%), VirtueMart (15%) and Zen cart (15%). It can be assumed that the increase in popularity of Magento will continue, making Magento by far the most used online shopping cart system in the near future.