Retailers struggle with ‘Surf and Turf’ e-commerce trend, Barclaycard

UK retailers are losing out on more than £18 billion in potential sales each year, as British shoppers make a habit of website window-shopping. That’s according to Barclaycard research involving over 2,000 Brits who have abandoned an item online and 314 senior managers at retailers with an online presence.

‘Surf and Turf’ shoppers each abandon an online basket worth an average of £29.37 every month. 41% had done so in the last year, compared to 24% who had walked away from a purchase in-store. Yet six in ten retailers were unaware of the average buyer drop-out rate on their website and just 27% analyse the browsing behaviour of shoppers who abandon their baskets. A further 45% are also unable to pinpoint lost sales by gender and 41% by age group. Three in ten merchants struggle to name the month when their website sees the highest level of shopping basket abandonment, while 37% are unable to identify the time of day when drop-outs peak.

The most popular tactics retailers use to tackle basket abandonment are automated email reminders (30%) followed by a shopping basket ‘expiry period’ (19%) – which a further three in ten have plans to introduce in the future. For those that have taken this step, the average expiry period is 66 hours (2.8 days).

Clare Bailey, Independent Retail Expert comments: “It is so important that retailers not only invest in marketing to drive footfall to their websites, but also in their payment process to ensure that the online shopping experience is as seamless and hassle-free as possible. In the same way that consumers can lose interest in a purchase when buying in-store due to long queues, they are also put off by confusing and long check-out processes online. As such, retailers don’t want to waste their efforts in helping customers get items into the basket only to fall at the final hurdle when customers drop out because of problems at the check-out.”