What is online shoppers’ number one turnoff?

To win the hearts of customers, e-commerce retailers need to minimize one particular cost.

According to the fourth annual “Reimagining Commerce” global survey from omnichannel marketing platform provider Episerver, a leading 76% of respondents would be dissuaded from making a planned online purchase if shipping was too expensive. This response was significantly more popular than the next two most popular reasons – slow website load times (57%) and bad product descriptions (52%).

Not surprisingly considering attitudes toward shipping cost, a substantial majority of consumers now expect free online shipping. Breaking down responses by country, the study found that 82% of U.S. consumers expect free shipping (the most of any country surveyed). Free returns (55%) and ability to track shipments (51%) followed.

Other key findings taken from global responses include:

•    53% of those who said they shop online every day rely on their smartphones. Of the most frequent shoppers (once per day), nearly half (48%) have significantly increased their reliance on their smartphones for shopping in the last year.
 
•    Well over half of millennials (58%) default to smartphones when shopping online, followed by Gen Z at 49%, Gen X at 48% and baby boomers at just 18%. 

•    On average, one-fifth of consumers have made purchases directly because of a social media influencer’s product post. But 50% of Gen Z shoppers and 48% of millennials have purchased products either directly by clicking on a post or later on as a result of the influencer’s endorsement. 

•    62% of respondents feel that companies should place the same priority on personalized experiences in 2020 as they did in 2019. At the same time, 25% feel that brands and retailers should make respecting their anonymity online a higher priority. 

•    Over 80% of respondents in each of the five countries surveyed said they’re most likely to be on the couch when shopping online.

“Reimagining Commerce” is based on a survey of more than 4,500 online shoppers across the U.S., U.K., Australia, Germany, and Sweden.