Two studies were released this week that caught our eye, as they touch on social shopping technologies like ShopTogether.
A benchmarking study put out by Omniture indicated that “a majority of e-retailers and other online businesses are failing to take advantage of analytics technology to optimize web site content to better convert shoppers to buyers.” Among the survey’s findings:
- 80% of companies don’t promote web site content based on analytics that show how particular content engages shoppers and converts them to buyers.
- 80% of companies don’t present personalized content based on shoppers’ interests as shown by analytics and clickstream data.
Since the study served to just benchmark the industry, we can only speculate on the reasons behind this: Complexity? Cost? Time constraints? Regardless of the reasons for the lack of action, one of the products in our ShopTogether family, ShopTogether Crowd, is an easy solution for e-retailers to merchandise the most popular items on the site in real-time, give online shoppers new ideas for what to buy and boost click-through rates and conversions. One DecisionStep customer using ShopTogether Crowd has seen 100 percent higher click-through rates and 100 percent higher conversion rates.
The other survey released this week shows that “Americans shopping online are missing the personalized experience of visiting a brick and mortar store, leading to a decrease in purchases.”
The findings show:
- About 4 in 5 online adults who have purchased items online in the past 6 months (77 percent) say they would be interested in getting help from a real person before making certain online purchases. Of these adults, over half say they’d want help from a real person before purchasing things like real estate (56 percent), automobiles (54 percent), and insurance (51 percent). Many would also like help from a real person when it comes to purchasing things like personal computers (42 percent), computer hardware/software (39 percent), home appliances (35 percent) and mobile phones (31 percent).
- While the majority of online adults who have purchased items online in the past 6 months say they would be interested in getting help from a real person before making the purchase, over 4 in 5 (82 percent) say there have been times when they have not been able to get the help from a real person.
- Most strikingly, over half (52 percent) of those who have not always been able to get the help they needed from a real person say it’s affected their decision to not purchase the product at least sometimes, while 16 percent say it’s affected their decision not to purchase the product almost always or often.
The study makes a pretty good case that dollars are being left on the table when online customers can’t get a second opinion. ShopTogether is an ideal tool for retailers looking to connect their shoppers with friends, family and customer service agents. The ability to mutually view a friend’s items in real time eliminates confusion about what products they’re looking at and there aren’t barriers like logging into a separate account or downloading software in order to use the technology.
It is reassuring to continue to see studies that support our vision for the ShopTogether family.
Tags: real-time, ShopTogether, shoptogether crowd, social shopping