• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, September 29, 2021

Product discovery is the biggest ecommerce problem brands might not know they have.

Difficulty in finding the products on a retailer’s site is one of the top reasons for abandoning the search or "bouncing" to another website, according to survey results released today.

Nearly 73% of consumers participating in a survey by Qubit, which focuses on artificial intelligence and personalization, cited the difficulty of finding a product as the top reason for abandoning a site without making a purchase. The findings released Wednesday were fielded in July 2021.

Of the 1,500 U.S. and UK consumers who participated, 61% cited poor navigation as another top reason for bouncing or abandoning a site. Some 6.3% of consumers reported looking for products page by page to find what they need, rather than using the retailer’s site-search feature.

Nearly nine in 10 shoppers feel overwhelmed by product choices presented to them on a retailer’s site, according to previously released data. It’s well known that brands only have a couple of pages to grab and maintain a shopper’s attention.

Customer loyalty is now more difficult than ever to come by. There’s a lot of competition.

Nearly 30% of consumers plan to buy more online this holiday season compared to 2020, with 54.5% of shoppers expecting to shop as much online during the 2021 holiday shopping season.

Consumers are overwhelmed with products on websites from Nordstrom to Home Depot, many of which now drop ship directly from the manufacturer.

The average product catalog contains 13,000 products, according to Qubit’s research. Digital merchandisers and ecommerce teams are under constant pressure to optimize product performance -- constantly updating product catalogs, adjusting page layouts, and sifting through spreadsheet after spreadsheet of product performance data.

In fact, 88% of shoppers say they are faced with an overwhelming number of product choices.

It’s not about improving visibility for large amounts of products. It’s more about using AI to personalize the selection. Search is about enabling consumers to find a few select products, among the thousands of products, that are most relevant to them.

Some 42% of U.S. consumers expect products recommendations to be tailored to their individual preferences, yet 37.1% said product recommendations are rarely tailored to them.

There is no room for missteps when it comes to customer service.

Shipping and return policies, at 54.5%, and lack of reviews, at 52%, were also high on the list of reasons why shoppers leave the brand’s site or abandon a purchase.

The data also shows that mobile shopping appears to be more popular with U.S. respondents than in the UK, with 40.7% of U.S. consumers reporting their preference to shop by smartphone versus 30.4% in the UK.