Most shoppers, 65% in fact, say that if an e-commerce site doesn’t quickly show what they want, they’ll just shop elsewhere, according to a new study conducted by OnePoll for Redwood Software, which sells technology that helps retailers automate business processes such as updating product information on web sites.
Retail stores scored even worse in the study, which found that 75% of consumers say they have left a store without making a purchase when they couldn’t quickly find the product they were looking for. The study was based on an online survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers in March 2013.
When the poll asked consumers to name specific shopping experiences that annoy them, it received the following answers, with the percentage of respondents citing each:
Repeating personal information to a customer service rep after entering that information online or via telephone, 62%;
Going to a store to find something, only to find it’s out of stock, 61%;
Repeating account information or issues every time a shopper is transferred to another customer service rep, 59%;
Waiting for a credit on an account after returning a product, 52%;
The hassle of returning online purchases, 49%;
Trying to buy something online, only to find it’s unavailable, 47%;
The hassle of returning in-store purchases, 37%.
The study also found:
49% of online shoppers abandon transactions that take too long;
48% of online shoppers abandon transactions that are too complicated.