When Buying OnlineThere are some interesting findings from both Nielsen and Hitwise recently made available. Both look at online shopping during the holiday season, and provide some insight into some things businesses trying to sell their goods and services online may want to consider.
First of all, people want free shipping. While this is probably always true, it is a fact that is emphasized during the economic downturn. It has probably already occurred to you that people want free shipping, but Hitwise provides some hard data about just how bad:
Consumers love free shipping and seek out the promotion if it isn’t already appearing in their inboxes from the retailers themselves. The share of variations for ‘free shipping’ during this holiday season has increased, with a higher number of search terms that include ‘free shipping’ in the query. The peak to date occurred during the week ending Dec. 6, 2008, which included Cyber Monday, where there were 954 variations, up 43% from the corresponding week last year. Last week there was an increase of 47% of queries to include ‘free shipping’ and an increase of 31% during the week of Thanksgiving from the previous year.
Another thing businesses will want to consider, and this is really true for the entire year, is that people are very much interested in reading customer reviews of your product. Nielsen announced that 81% of online shoppers have read a product or retailer review by other customers when doing their holiday shopping this year.
"Consumer reviews are a must-have for online retailers, especially during the holiday season when shoppers are buying for others in categories they’re less familiar with," said Ken Cassar, vice president, industry insights, Nielsen Online. "Perhaps more than any other time of year, consumers are looking for outside feedback for guidance."
Nielsen also provided at some other interesting data regarding online shopping that you can view here. There's some good stuff in there about reasons why people shop at particular websites, why they visit retailer websites before visiting the store, and how much money they have already spent online this holiday season. Read about it all here.
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Comments
What is cusomters?
RE: What is cusomters?
Cost of Free Shipping
Invite
Hi Chris
I just published your story on my website to spread the word. This says it all on what people are looking for, and I am sure will solidify as ecommerce on the web matures.
Was not sure how to contact you otherwise. I welcome you to be a frequent contributor over there. Easy Marketing Classifieds
Ed
statistics that validate our assumptions!
hi Chris, At our online portable trade show displays company, we always assumed people would want and appreciate free shipping which is why we've been providing it for several years. It's nice to see the numbers to back up our assumptions. But to me it's pretty obvious... offer your customers what you would look for when you're shopping, which is why I'm not surprised about the conclusions on product reviews (which we have also) either. Nice article. Steve, Pinnacle Displays
free delivery is a must for sellers online
free delivery is a must for sellers online.
If online sellers offer products that can be purchased online and delivered to the door, then they should consider FREE delivery for products. Although some people are looking at "Same Day" Delivery as the futuure, this would work well in Cities, however rural areas may not be viable for this.
In addition to this type of service, it is apparent that shoppers online prefer to buy goods reduced in price and with Free delivery.
We sell beds and mattress and ensure we have Free delviery in the uk,
So i think this backs up the need for free postage.
Regards
mike
I agree but..
I thought free shipping would be a really great thing for my web site but being a new safety and security web site with a small amount of traffic, I had to raise my prices to cover the shipping costs. Orders were few and far between but when I took away the free shipping, lowered my prices and then added the actual shipping charges, I began to get orders on a consistant basis.
Thanks, Chris, for another great article.
consumer product reviews
Consumer and peer-to-peer feedback is one of the most powerful factors influencing purchasing decisions on the Internet. Retailers who are not capturing customer feedback and putting it on their websites are missing the mark. Additionally, and probably more importantly, eTailers need to monitor online chatter to find out what consumers are saying about the products purchased, service received and overall shopping experience. These are great opportunities for retailers to participate in the consumers world and gain priceless product feedback. The tables have obviously turned with consumer product reviews as these can make or break an eTailer's reputation and its growth or loss in sales ---- especially when 80% of consumers are checking out online reviews before buying! There was another stat from a major, credible survey a few months back that 25% of search results are not consumer reviews or product feedback reviews. Retailers need to figure out how to best engage centers of influence, such as bloggers, for product testing, unbiased feedback, etc to gain a competitive advantage. Oh yeah, and free shipping is a default in competitive landscapes especially higher purchase items of $100+.
Great info Chris
Free shipping works
We sell body jewellery online and even though most of our items retail between $5 and $15 we offer free shipping for orders over $25 and we find that a lot of people are putting more items in their cart to get the free shipping. They end up spending between just on $25 and $30 just for the free shipping (even though some of them have let's say $15 in their cart and are spending another $10 for free delivery when it's only $3.85). We offer over it over $25 as it wouldn't be economical for us to send out an item that costs us $3.85 when they are buying a $5 item. It works really well!
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