Columbus, OH, November 11, 2005--Online retailers can look forward to strong online sales and traffic again this holiday season.
Furthermore, those retailers who can effectively reduce or eliminate the frustrations of the online shopping experience on their sites will realize even stronger results as they keep their customers shopping and coming back for more.
Once again, the e-commerce sector is forecast to be the fastest growing retail sector this holiday season. Retail Forward forecasts e-commerce sales growth of 27% in the fourth quarter of 2005, with sales reaching $27.3 billion this holiday season. A persisting job market and income gains combined with lower prices in key online merchandise categories including consumer electronics and apparel will contribute to this growth.
Research recently conducted by Retail Forward in its monthly ShopperScape online consumer survey indicates that most primary household shoppers will use online shopping sites as part of their holiday gift shopping and two-thirds of these online holiday shoppers plan to buy at least some gifts online this year.
Despite tremendous improvements in the online shopping experience during the past few years, two-thirds of online shoppers report having been frustrated by their online shopping experiences in the past six months. In the company's recently published E-Retailing Shopper Update, Retail Forward reports that what frustrates online shoppers most is pop-up ads, messages or forms, slow-loading pages and being forced to register prior to making a purchase.
"The stakes are high for online retailers that do not remove these frustrations," comments Mary Brett Whitfield, Senior Vice President with Retail Forward and author of the E-Retailing Shopper Update. "A shopper's most likely response to any of these frustrations is to leave a site and shop somewhere else for the same or similar item. Furthermore, for nearly one-third of shoppers such an experience is reason enough to stop shopping a site altogether," she adds.
To make matters worse, Retail Forward's ShopperScape survey finds that only 11% of shoppers complain to the company when frustrated by any of these things. Shoppers are more than twice as likely to complain to friends, family members or coworkers. "If online retailers think they can keep tabs on what consumers find frustrating about their sites by monitoring customer complaints, they should think again," Whitfield concludes.
