What Online Retailers will do to get you to click buy? by: Charlie Wells Dec 02, 2015

TOPICS: E-Commerce

SUMMARY: Retailers are trying to figure out how to get window shoppers to click 'buy' and make online purchases. There are several strategies. One is to follow shoppers around the web with ads for the products they abandoned. Emails are used to remind shoppers about what they left in their cart. Some stores use texts or push notifications. Leaving something in your cart might also result in the retailer pointing you to promotions or discounts. The percent of carts abandoned with something in them is high at 69%. Shoppers abandon items for many reasons. Shoppers jump around more with mobile phones. Unexpected costs, shipping or sales tax, lead to 33% of abandonments. Creating an account with a password and username results in 23% of abandoned carts and complicated checkouts is another 18%. Retailers are still figuring out how to follow customers across platforms and how best to get them to complete orders.

CLASSROOM APPLICATION: Online shopping made life easier in some ways and harder in others. It can be more difficult to develop a reasonable choice set when the choices seem endless. Shopping throughout the day on different devices can create challenges when sites don't make the process seamless. There are things retailers do that result in shoppers abandoning their cart. The added costs of shipping and taxes that don't show up until the end of the process are another cause of abandoned carts. Having to create an account to order or remember one already created is another cause of abandoned carts. Complicated checkouts add to the problem. Retailers are collecting and using data to encourage shoppers to return. Data is also used to study shopping habits based on how a customer comes from or what device they use. There is potential for sales revenue if retailers can figure out how to get shoppers to complete their order.

QUESTIONS: 1. Have you ever had ads follow you around or show up in your inbox as was described in the article? How did you feel about the experience? (or how would you feel if it did happen?) 2. List all the reasons why customers abandon items in carts without buying and identify the relative importance of each. 3. Review the methods retailers use to try and encourage shoppers to return to the carts they abandoned. 4. Evaluate the differences in shopper behavior based on the kind of device they are using, how they access a site and the kind of product they are purchasing.