Convenience or Security?

Have a look at the chart below

Search comparison for Shopping and Security online

What inference can you draw from the chart?

Though the data set is not precise, it gives a very significant insight i.e.

"In general, people are not very much bothered with this Security thing when shopping online"

What a deep insight, you would say. But, companies who sell online would benefit if they remember this when designing the products. Customers should not have to remember multiple passwords, go through multiple screens, use hardware tokens, enter a validation code, or anything that comes between them and buying.

If I had to propose a design guideline to my product team, it would be:

"Make it frictionless, but ensure that the plumbing around customer data wherever it is (browser, pipe, or servers), can defeat the ingenuities of the best hackers out there"

Top 5 Challenges for Online Retailers

1. Reducing Cart Abandonment: £1.5 trillions worth of shopping baskets are abandoned online globally. Even a slight improvement would lead to a windfall for the retail industry. This can be attributed to the inefficient buying processes. For example, once the customer has decided to buy something, she has to register with the website, before making the purchase. But, this is not the end. During checkout, a lengthy payment process further exacerbates the users frustration. As a result, most of the customers (66%) end up abandoning their shopping basket.

2. Devising a Mobile Strategy: Accept it or Not, Mobile devices are changing the way people buy things. It makes it imperative for retailers to have a mobile strategy, which should encompass everything from advertisements to the order completion. Also, with limited real estate of mobile devices, the website should be intelligently designed to adapt to provide a consistent experience to the customers. 

3. Supporting Multiple Touch points: Consumers can engage with online retailers with different intents: to buy, to give feedback, or to complain. Retailers are expected to be there when customers want to talk to them. Today the shopping process can be complicated, with the buyer searching for an item on her desktop, booking it on her tablet sitting in Starbucks, and then proceeding to the nearest store to collect the item. The retailer should provide seamless experience to the buyer across multiple channels.

4. Creating Loyal Customers: It is getting increasingly difficult for retailers to keep customers coming for more. This is primarily due to fact that the customer wants the best bargain, and there are tools available for her to compare prices across multiple websites, and go for the one that best meet her need in terms of cost and delivery. Retailers need to implement loyalty and payment solutions that make it easy to reward customers. For e.g. location based personalized advertising, and intelligent retargeting can help in getting a larger share of customer’s wallet.

5. Leveraging Customer Data: The challenge is not the scarcity of data; it’s plenty to collect. The real challenge for retailers is to figure out how to mine that data intelligently, and use it to better serve their customers. With cost of storing data decreasing every year, there is no excuse for retailers. This data can be used for not only for segmenting customers, but also to predict the demand to keep an advantage over competitors. Clothing retailer Zara excelled at this by observing fashion trends on streets, and stocking inventory accordingly. It is time for retailers to step up their data game.

Certainly there are many other challenges before retailers, compounded by the fact that mobile revolution is shaking up the way people shop, and still no standards have emerged for retailers to cling on to. If they were on the wrong side, they would be left out; if they wait and watch, they would be left out!