The three most common gripes among online shoppers
It is undeniable that the online sales of webshops have gone through the roof during the pandemic: the online turnover has increased by 123% in the garden industry alone.
With the arrival of more online shoppers, the number of complaints has also increased. According to Google, 42% of online shoppers say they have experienced problems when completing their purchase. This is an increase of more than 10% compared to 2020.
Of course, you want the consumer to encounter as few obstacles as possible when buying in your webshop. That's why we want to help you by sharing online shoppers’ three most common gripes and tips on how to avoid them.
1. Mandatory registration
One of the reasons many people drop out before they proceed to payment is the registration process. Creating an account to place an order is an obstacle for 11% of frustrated online shoppers. Although the buyer always has to leave some information before sending and paying for the purchase, creating an account feels like a big favour.
Solution: make it possible to order without an account. If you want to stimulate registration, postpone it until later in the ordering process or make it more attractive by mentioning the advantages. Within the Garden Connect Platform, this is an option for this. Also, you could link your loyalty card to your webshop: this makes logging in much easier for your existing customers!
2. Absence of customer reviews
9% of frustrated consumers say that they find it annoying when the reviews of other customers are hard to find or even missing. More than half of the consumers base their purchase decision on recommendations from others. Therefore, it is not surprising that they expect them to be prominently displayed in your webshop.
Solution: display the product reviews on the corresponding product page and ask your customers to write a review after they purchase a product. This is easily done by sending out a mailing based on the purchase behaviour. This form of Personal Marketing makes it possible to approach people personally and reward them after writing a review.
3. Unfavourable return policies
More than half of consumers say they read the return policy before placing an online order. Without a good return policy, you run the risk of your potential buyers abandoning their shopping cart. This is confirmed by 7% of frustrated online shoppers, citing an unfavourable return policy as the reason not to complete an order.
Solution: in addition to complying with the mandatory right of withdrawal, more generous terms are sometimes a good idea. Some examples are:
- Extend your return period to 30 days. Longer is even better.
- Offer free returns. If your webshop is too small for this, you can consider free exchange of orders.
- Make the return process easy to understand by formulating the return policy briefly but clearly on a central location in the webshop. Next, make the return process as effortless as possible, for example, by sending the return label along in an easy-to-re-use box.
- Offer more than one option to return: a courier pick-up, drop-off at a service point or return to the physical shop.
A smooth checkout for your webshop
These are the three most common complaints in the world of e-commerce of 2021. Of course, online shoppers encounter many other obstacles while placing an order. For example, when customer service does not respond (or too late), when products are out of stock or when the product information is not complete. It is always best to remove these obstacles as best as you can to increase your conversion rate and the number of returning customers.
Do you want to know what improvements are possible in the checkout of your webshop? Our online marketers are happy to help!
