Commentary

Let Your Fingers Do The Shopping: The Online Holiday Outlook

Want to drive a customer right away with your holiday emails?

Consumers will abandon a purchase if the shipping is too expensive, if there are poor product descriptions, or if the website takes too long to load, according to An Interview with The Couch Shopper: The Episerver Holiday Ecommerce Report 2020.  

The title is slightly misleading: there is no actual interview with a couch potato. 

But the findings are critical, given that 44% of consumers plan to do most of their holiday shopping online, many from their couch. Another 29% will do equal amounts online and in-store and 28% mostly in-store.  

With conversion rates averaging between 2% and 3%, this shows that there are “more abandoned carts than checkouts,” the study says. And this proves the need for automated cart abandonment emails.

Happily, 56% of shoppers return to a retail site to buy the items they had viewed, in some cases in response to retargeted ads.  

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Sadly for the email team, organic search now produces the highest conversion rate — 3.1% — compared to direct traffic, display, email, paid search and social.  

Social has grown from .9% in 2018, 1.1% in 2019 and 1.3 to date this year. 

In line with this reliance on search, 33% of U.S. consumers start their online purchasing journey for a specific product on Google. But even more begin on Amazon — 48%. In addition, 6% start with a channel dubbed “other marketplace,” 9% on a retailer’s website, 1% on a retailer’s mobile app and 2% on other. 

For the record, 85 of U.S. consumers shopping at home are doing so from their couches. Those in the UK are 2% more likely to do so.  

Episerver surveyed 4,050 online shoppers worldwide. 

The findings come amidst a barrage of studies about holiday shopping habits during the COVID-19 era. 

For instance, a new survey by Bluedot shows an uptick in use of mobile apps for shopping. Of millennials, 58% plan to do more shopping via app this year, versus 49% of Gen Xers, 45% of boomers and 42% of Gen Zers.  

Overall, 29% of the respondents plan to use apps for curbside pickup and 25% for in-store pickup. 

In addition, 22% plan to use curbside pickup for 75% of their shopping. But only 30% are getting the experience they crave: automated check-in on arrival and staff to deliver the order to the car.  

Whatever the holdup, triggered emails are essential for alerts and updates. 

Two thirds of consumers plan to use BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store) at the same levels — or more — than last year.

Bluedot surveyed 1,501 U.S. consumers.  

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