More than half (56%) of consumers who spend more than two hours per week shopping online have cancelled an order due to an error or slow response time, according to a new survey by Monitis.
As the holiday shopping season approaches – with Cyber Monday on the horizon on November 26 - e-retailers need to be thinking beyond simply ensuring that websites are up, moving towards assessing how effectively they are able to do business and putting more focus on strengthening the aspects of their online stores that will prevent customer and transaction losses resulting from sub-optimal performance and customer experience.
Almost three-quarters (74%) of all online shoppers surveyed said that they would switch to a competing online vendor if they could find a better user experience and faster website than the one they currently use. Although we all thought we knew this before, it makes an impression when you see it confirmed so clearly by yet another survey.
Frequent online shoppers are even less tolerant of slow e-retail websites. 86% of consumers who spend two or more hours shopping each week say that they would abandon their chosen online vendor if they found a faster competitor.
Other key findings from the survey include:
· 81% of all respondents listed convenience as the number one reason for choosing to shop online rather than making purchases at brick and mortar stores, while only 61% say that price is the most important factor.
· More than half of all respondents (56%) also indicated that website usability is an important factor when comparing one retail website to another, coming in just behind price and reputation.
· 61% of all online shoppers would leave a web page and search for a competing vendor if it took longer than 30 seconds to load.
· The most popular time to shop online (40% of all respondents) is actually during typical 9:00AM to 5:00PM work hours, while the next largest group (32%) of online shoppers typically shops in the early evening between 5:00PM and 8:00PM.
“Simply avoiding downtime is often the primary goal for web developers and designers when maintaining websites, but as the holiday rush has shifted to online stores, success depends less on the minimum threshold of uptime and more on meeting the various other expectations of shoppers, to keep them coming back,” said Hovhannes Avoyan, General Manager at Monitis. “Consumers turn to online vendors for convenience, so it’s critical that e-retailers ensure a positive shopping experience by focusing on website usability and speed.”
The survey, which polled 1,006 US online shoppers, was conducted by Opinion Matters on behalf of Monitis.