It all worked better this holiday season for online shoppers.
Customers had to click less to make a purchase–5.36 clicks to checkout compared to 8.76 clicks one year ago. Inventory status was available in real time at 54% of the Web sites studied, up from 42% during the holiday 2000 shopping season. And privacy has moved to the forefront, with 90% of sites linking to privacy policies directly from the home page.
“Marketers are using time-tested direct marketing techniques on the Web to improve customer service and retention,” said DMA president H. Robert Wientzen in a statement. “This study showed that during the recent holiday season, marketers did an impressive job of delivering excellent customer service and addressing factors that disappointed some consumers during the 2000 holiday season.”
The study also found that:
* 80% of sites sent e-mail shipping confirmations, up from 54% in 2000
* 79% of sites enabled customers to check their order status online
* 99% provided toll-free numbers for customer service
* orders were successful on the first attempt on 93% of sites, an indicator that merchants have improved infrastructure to meet growing demand
The Mystery Shopping Study was conducted for the DMA by the e-tailing group, inc. During the fourth quarter of 2001, one product was purchased from each of 100 e-commerce sites in 16 product categories, including apparel, books/music, computers, consumer electronics, department stores, gifts, and home/garden. The research studied more than 100 factors across 13 tool sets that included customer service, gift services, promotional strategies, inventory/backorders, order processes and tracking, shipping, order confirmations, and post-order e-mail communications.
The study will be available for purchase in late February 2002 and can be ordered from the DMA Online Store (http://www.the-dma.org). The price is $195 for DMA members, and $395 for non-members.
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