Holiday: What Consumers Want From Your Site

Holiday: What Consumers Want From Your Site

November 12th, 2010 by Fiona Swerdlow, Head of Research, Shop.org
Posted in @Shop.org | Holidays | Research

Every year before the holiday season, we explore with consumers what really matters most to them when choosing to do business with a given online retailer. While the bulk of development and site features for holiday are now firmly in place, there are a number of things that consumers look for on retail sites that can certainly still be woven into messages in email, the home page, social media outlets, and so forth.

In this vein, last month we asked consumers to rank the importance of a number of site features (5 was “very important”, 1 was “not important at all”). (Shop.org members can download the full results of the2010 eHoliday pre-holiday consumer survey, conducted with partner BIGresearch.)  Top ranked features that emerged:

1. Seeing the final shopping cart total prior to check out: 4.7. Clearly this is not the time for any pricing surprises as customers head into the check out process. If you don’t already offer this functionality as part of your cart, add clear links to shipping cost info throughout the site, including product detail and check out pages.
2. Clear product descriptions: 4.6. It’s likely not too late to give these a last once-over. Have you “sanity-checked” the descriptions with friends or family members who aren’t involved in your business every day the way you are? What do the product reviews for an item tell you to emphasize or clarify in the description? Have you tapped experienced store associates for each category to make sure your copy editors haven’t inadvertently left out pertinent details?
3. Value for money: 4.5. As experienced retailers know, this doesn’t automatically mean sale prices – this simply means that customers want to know they’re getting the best and right product for that price. Is the toy made with BPA-free plastic? Is that cashmere from an Italian mill? Is the book a rare edition or signed by the author?
4. Product available to ship immediately: 4.5.I know, should be obvious. Still, consumers want to be reassured. Manage their expectations up front on the product page about availability (I like the color-coded chart that Boden USA uses when ordering a given size and color combination for a product). As a last resort, don’t show the item at all until you do have stock again.
5. Guaranteed on time delivery: 4.4. Again, hardly a surprise, so I’m guessing (hoping!) a lot of retailers recently have been having heart to hearts with their fulfillment teams and shipping partners. If you’re confident about your ability to deliver when you say you will, turn that into a selling point: tell customers that it really is “guaranteed” and how you will stand behind that assertion.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and ideas on our research.