Consumers are more willing to buy online, but also demand more

In March this year, Mobile Institute and Izba Gospodarki Elektronicznej (the Chamber of Electronic Commerce) published a report titled “What troubles e-commerce? It was prepared based on a survey of nearly 3000 Internet users, conducted a month earlier. The report shows that Poles are very eager to buy online, but at the same time, they see the imperfections of e-commerce.

Pandemic as a driving force behind e-commerce growth

The E-commerce market has been developing dynamically for several years, but as experts emphasize, the pandemic has caused a significant acceleration of this growth. In the last 12 months, Poles have been shopping online like never before. In May 2019, 57% of the surveyed bought online, a year later the percentage was already 72%. People who were limited to stationary shopping before the pandemic broke out have opened up to e-commerce. Many companies, that didn’t do so before, have begun to move their business online.

Poles on online shopping

Poles are very willing to do online shopping, but they also point out the problems they encounter in e-shops (only 12% of respondents do not see any problem). Customers expect a convenient shopping process tailored to their needs. Regardless of the channel, preferred payment method or place of ordering. This seems crucial to ensuring a positive shopping experience for consumers and, in turn, the success of the business. As many as 76% of respondents admitted that a problem they encounter while shopping in an online store could cause them to leave the store without completing the transaction. The comments are mainly related to the usability of the e-store, product presentation, payment, contact and sharing feedback with the e-store.

Maximizing e-commerce store usability

Only 26% of consumers do not perceive any problem related to the usability of online stores. What’s more, when it comes to regular e-commerce customers, only 12% indicate that they do not have any complaints about the usability of the store. The most frequently mentioned are: the necessity to register in the store, poor navigation through lists and product cards, limited filtering and comparison and inconvenient purchase forms.
Quick shopping without the need to log in is undoubtedly easier for consumers, but mainly for those who use the shopping site for the first time or rarely. Leaving their data is not a problem when it results in convenient shopping and access to dedicated offers.
More than a quarter of Internet users would like a dedicated widget available on the e-commerce website to remember their preferences and recognize them during their next visit (to better serve their inquiry). 39% would like to receive suggestions based on their previous searches on other sites or a previously saved list (in the case of frequent online shoppers it is already 65%).
As the importance of sensible and thoughtful shopping increases, so does the need for convenient product comparison. More and more consumers expect greater flexibility of e-stores in this regard, in particular the ability to compare a large number of products or their features. It is also important to be able to modify parameters during the comparison.

Detailed showcase

Only 23% of respondents (and 9% of the most frequent online shoppers) do not perceive problems with product presentation in e-commerce. At the same time, the most important shopping factors for them (right after price) are accurate product description and reviews (38% of indications each). The poor quality of information about the product or its lack can cause resignation from shopping in the e-store. Therefore companies should take special care of it. Also important are good product photos – for 36% of respondents this is the most important factor encouraging to purchase, and presentations in the form of films and 360-degree photos are also gaining in importance.

Modern forms of payment

As many as 68% of respondents perceive deficiencies in this area. Quick transfers and BLIK are the most popular forms of payment for e-shopping, but they point out that not all stores offer them. Respondents also find it difficult to classify expenses, and therefore to manage a household budget, when there is little information on the transfer after a mobile transaction. Lack of memory for previously made payments and different visualization of the same payments across channels are also cited as hindrances. These are areas where consumers would like to see improvement.

The customer must have a voice

Companies selling online should remember how important the customer’s opinion is. Recall that according to respondents, opinion is the second most important purchasing factor (equally with accurate product description, and right after price). At the same time, collecting opinions is the worst-rated element of e-shop functioning in the eyes of the Internet users (rating 6.15 on a scale of 1-10). Sharing opinions with an e-shop could be encouraged by additional bonuses – for 7 out of 10 respondents, it is a good motivator. It is also worth mentioning that 17% of respondents consider surveys sent to them by brands to be too long.

Let’s be in touch

According to consumers, companies are not interested in contacting them. As many as two out of three respondents would like to inform an e-shop about a problem they encountered and give them a chance to solve it positively. At the same time, 75% don’t know how they could contact them efficiently. Consumers also want to know what is happening with their feedback – has the information reached the store, is it being processed, when can they expect a response? The most desirable form of contact would be, simple to use and easily accessible, dedicated widget, allowing to share opinions, report a problem, or ask a question, at any time of visiting the e-shop. Such a form would be expected by 47% of Internet users (and as many as 73% of those who shop online often).

What was put in the cart should stay there

It is also worth ensuring that products remain in the shopping cart for a longer period of time, even if the customer decides not to make a purchase and leaves the e-shop. As many as one-fourth of online shoppers admit that a situation has happened to them when they wanted to finish shopping in an online store (after re-visiting it), but products placed earlier in the shopping cart disappeared. Interestingly, among those who shop online frequently, even several times a week, this percentage is as high as 56%. When such a situation occurs, 37% of respondents will abandon the purchase.
As the study shows, taking care of the positive shopping experience of a customer is very important. It is definitely worth taking care of the 55+ age group. These are often new users on the web, for whom comfort of the whole shopping process (and safety) is especially important. As many as 71% of this age group declares that in case of encountering problems in a given store, they will look for another one.

Magento – the answer to e-shoppers’ expectations

Magento, which is an advanced e-commerce platform, helps in the efficient functioning of an online store.  About 30% of e-shops in the world operate on it. Magento has a huge number of ready-made, built-in and very advanced functions. Among them, those that will eliminate the problems mentioned above and provide consumers with a positive shopping experience. These include:
– native ability to shop as a guest, without registration and login;
– intuitive and compliant with the latest trends navigation on the platform;
– Dynamic filtering, built based on attributes of the searched products;
– possibility of comparing products by each, predefined attribute;
– convenient, short path for purchase forms;
– two mechanisms of grouping customers;
– personalization for both logged in and not logged out customers;
– extensive field for creating product descriptions, description wizard and possibility to use templates;
– plug-in with leading product information management systems such as Akeneo PIM;
– native ability to upload any number of images, as well as embed videos from the most popular sites;
– existence of many plugins and functionalities for online and BLIK transfers;
– built-in mechanism of adding opinions on the product level, star rating – plug-in for rating by stars;
– integration with Adobe Sensei – the ability to recommend products based on previous web searches;
– built-in module with contact form;
– the possibility of embedding chat.

If you would like to discuss the details of e-commerce solutions, please contact us.