New Zealand ecommerce businesses hurdled by lacking customer experience

Moreover, almost half (45%) of surveyed online shoppers have abandoned a purchase after experiencing frustrations with a website, while 47% have gone to a different website to purchase the same product, according to new research commissioned by Rackspace cloud computing company and issued by PureProfile market research company.

These online frustrations are driving user spend back to bricks and mortar retailers. While 83% of those surveyed shopped online for the convenience, 44% thought traditional retail outlet shopping was quicker if they knew what they were looking for and 43% preferred the service they received in-store. In addition, nearly a third (29%) have given up entirely with online buying and gone back to the high street shops. The types of frustrations experienced with online shopping are many and varied, but the top three frustrations reported were too many pop-up advertisements (42%), service online is not the same as in-store (34%), and too time consuming to narrow down options available (28%).

In contrast, 42% of shoppers reported that online search categories don’t match their required criteria, while another 42% said that websites didn’t provide options that are specific to their search. Thirty-seven per cent said that some sites only give one search filter option. 64% of surveyed shoppers from New Zealand believed that shopping online is cheaper than in store. In fact, more than a third (36%) have chosen an item in a retail store, but waited to go online to purchase it at a cheaper price.

It is a big opportunity for online stores to win shoppers through value added offerings and more intuitive online shopping options and settings. 79% of surveyed women and 67% of men want the option of free returns or same day delivery to be made available to them, while more than half of all shoppers (57%) want simpler checkout service. Thirty-seven per cent felt that online shopping should be easier and more intuitive.

The survey was conducted on more than 1,000 online shoppers across Australia and New Zealand.