News

U.K, U.S. consumers not thrilled with online holiday shopping experience

British and American consumers may be spending big this holiday season, but they’re not very satisfied with the retail customer experience taking place, especially when it comes to finding information and product data online.

December 3, 2015

A new Eptica research report states Britain enjoyed record sales on Black Friday, but consumers aren’t too happy with the online retail environment, with 21 percent stating it was impossible to get wanted info online — a three-fold spike from 2014.

The 2015 Eptica Retail Black Friday Customer Experience Study surveyed the customer experience around festive shopping, particularly Black Friday and Cyber Monday, in both the U.K. and United States.

American shoppers were marginally less happy with service levels than British counterparts, with 33 percent of British consumers and 35 percent of U.S. shoppers reporting they are unhappy with the online experience.

In the U.K. many consumers are postponing Christmas shopping and while 24 percent bought items online on Black Friday and 12 percent on Cyber Monday, 49 percent hadn’t made any purchases before the end of November. A fifth, 20 percent, hadn’t yet started their festive shopping at all. The research firm states the figures illustrate that retailers should be shoring up resources and technology to meet consumer expectations in online shopping beyond the big Black Friday sales period.

"Black Friday 2015 may have seen record sales, but it has not been matched by the high levels of service that consumers demand," said Olivier Njamfa, CEO and co-founder of Eptica, in an announcement. "Three times more British shoppers than in 2014 complained about not being able to find the right information when shopping online, highlighting basic flaws in how retailers are approaching the Christmas period. Given that consumers are becoming more demanding, and want to increasingly use channels such as mobile, retailers need to improve the experience before their customers simply go elsewhere."

The research also revealed a minority of consumers are using smartphones to buy while in a store and 14 percent bought from the website of the retailer they were in, but 13 percent purchased from a competitor.

"Clearly companies need to work on their mobile customer service, with over half of those that bought in store via smartphones complaining about the service — 57 percent in the case of those purchasing from the retailer they were in, and 53 percent if buying from another company. This shows the importance of being able to provide the right information at the right time to customers to help them move swiftly through the purchasing process, whatever channel they are using," states the release.

Other key findings from the research were:

29 percent of U.K. consumers are extremely satisfied with the online experience, with 33 percent unsatisfied.
37 percent of British are unhappy with the experience in store, with 27 percent extremely satisfied.
31 percent of Americans had completed three quarters or more of their festive shopping — against 37 percent of British.
18 percent of U.S. consumers complained that it was impossible or extremely difficult to find information on retailer websites, against 21 percent in the U.K.

The 2015 Eptica Retail Christmas Customer Experience Study is based on consumer research conducted by Toluna with 1,000 U.K. shoppers and 1,000 American shoppers on Nov. 20.