Frustrated online shoppers head to high street

Almost half, 45 percent, of UK consumers claim they prefer to shop on the high street instead of the ‘frustrating’ online shopping experience, according to a new survey from Rackspace, a leading managed cloud company.

Rackspace found that consumers were frustrated with long winded search functions, too much choice and irrelevant pop up adverts. It claims that 34 percent of the 2,000 consumers surveyed said they give up browsing a website after 10 minutes if they can’t find what they want and a further 26 percent will give up after 15 minutes.

Men are less patient in their search with 40 percent prepared to spend no more than 10 minutes looking for an item compared to 28 percent of women. As a result, 45 percent of shoppers would switch to another website, 35 percent claim they would abandon their purchase entirely and 24 percent would hit the shops to find what they need instead.

Nigel Beighton, VP of technology at Rackspace, said: “There is no doubt that the internet has made shopping cheaper but this survey shows that retailers are really missing a trick when it comes to converting browsing shoppers to buying customers on their websites. Retailers are making it too difficult for them to find what they want because of limited and frustrating search filters.”

Asked specifically about what frustrated them, 26 percent believed the categories offered by e-commerce sites don’t match their desired criteria, 25 percent think that they aren’t specific to their search and a further 20 percent complain they are given just one option.

The survey also noted that online retailers are failing to inspire consumers in the same way their bricks and mortar counterparts do, with 38 percent of consumers polled citing finding ‘inspiration’ as the main reason to shop on the high street compared to just one in five who go online.

Shoppers more inspired by high street than online

Beighton, added: “We are now in a place where big data and search combined is so powerful that it can take information from both the outside and online world and offer shoppers something truly bespoke to them as an individual. The search function might not seem that significant but actually it holds the key to solving all of these problems.

“Cloud has given retailers unmatched levels of computing power necessary to manage their big data and give them real time analysis so they can refine their search functionality. Ultimately, a powerful search function can take customer data – their preferences, habits, buying behaviours – and combine it with online and real world information to create a unique and, most importantly, an easy online experience for shoppers.”