skip to main content

2,634 shops listed | Last updated: Friday, March 29, 2024

Monitor Add a site

Delivery mistakes cost customer loyalty

Thursday, November 8, 2012 - 15:06 by Mike Price

Share on

A new YouGov poll has found that UK consumers are not very tolerant of e-commerce companies getting their orders wrong and delivering an item which is either not as described or damaged in some way.

Over 2,100 British adults were questioned as part of the study, with 25 per cent stating that they will probably avoid using a retailer in the future, if they do not get the product that they paid for after a session of safe shopping online.

Twenty eight per cent said that damage to their delivered item would be even more likely to put them off a particular retail brand.

Online retailers have increasingly been adding new late order cut-off deadlines, so that consumers can shop in the evening and expect to get next day delivery on their products.

However, just six per cent of respondents to the survey said that they were strongly convinced of the importance of such a facility, which suggests that it is not as necessary to the progress of safe shopping online, as might have been assumed.

Sixty nine per cent of average shoppers revealed that they take user feedback very seriously when deciding whether or not to purchase a particular product, or shop with a specific online retailer.

Meanwhile, 80 per cent of social media users, including those who regularly access Twitter, said that third party opinions were very influential during their e-commerce sessions.

This shows that UK consumers will often look to the opinions of others, not just the official marketing blurb, when purchasing products online.

Ultimately, the findings of the study are not that surprising, since no consumers would hope to have their online order mis-delivered in any way. But this will hopefully drive home that message to e-commerce companies, so that fewer errors occur in the future.