The online opportunity

According to eCommerce research carried out by VWO in 2014, 54% of online shoppers say they would purchase products they left in their cart if the same products were offered to them again at a discounted price. A quarter of online shoppers are willing to spend more in order to qualify for free shipping and 55% of online shoppers admit that online reviews influence their buying decisions.

 53% of young online shoppers (ages 18-34) say Facebook keeps them informed about the latest online shopping trends; and a whopping 74% of online shoppers won’t ‘share’ on social media a product which they’ve bought online. 

The fact is that shopping per se is increasingly moving online whilst bricks-&-mortar shops are increasingly becoming more like showrooms and/or fitting rooms (or trying rooms) since you can buy everything (and have it delivered to your door step) online for a cheaper price.

I don’t know how often I have seen local consumers try things at a shop, take a photo or scaning the bar code, only to presumably buy the same online. I can't understand how shops with high rents and overheads survive. 

The online shopping world, however, is a different animal to the traditional bricks-&-mortar one. Online consumers think and behave differently. I mean why do online shoppers (as much as 70%) abandon their shopping cart? According to the research quoted above, the top three reasons are unexpected shipping costs, the need to create a new user account and the fact that some consumers aren't buying but engaging in market research.  

The hard truth is that online sellers cannot now-a-days simply think in terms of selling. No, they must also offer a unique and valuable customer experience. People must want to make your web site one of their favorite bookmarks and they will follow it only because it offers valuable, interesting and constantly new or updated information. 

For example, I personally really like the digital magazine ‘Outside’ [http://www.outsideonline.com/] as it provides me with highly interesting and varied articles (with great images) about outdoor activities and related topics.

Incidentally, and it has nothing to do with this blog, but I also absolutely love and identify with their slogan: ‘Live Bravely’.

This digital magazine also evaluates, compares and recommends technical sporting gear, places of interest, health & fitness tips, nutrition and a whole lot of other stuff that any guy who likes the outdoors would be interested in. I often find myself buying clothes and other products that were mentioned on this site.

The quality of the brands is always top notch, they can't be found in Malta and there's a story behind these 'cool' brands, which makes the whole shopping experience all the richer. Don’t get me wrong: I visit the site primarily because it is very interesting and matches my passion for outdoor sports.

I also only buy products the site 'independently recommends' as an indirect consequence of my frequent visits to the site and because I highly value its content. The point I am trying to make is that web sites that just 'sell' are an anachronism. You have to offer your brand ‘followers’ highly interesting, valuable and fresh content first. The shopping part follows as a consequence of this in most cases. 

Interestingly, the same VWO research reports that more than 50% of online shoppers buy products they originally left in their cart. Odd isn't it? I mean if they left it in their shopping carts they presumably don’t want it? Wrong. The research shows that if companies re-target these same shoppers with discounted prices, they stand a good chance of converting abandoned shopping carts to actual online sales.

Sportsdirect, which seems to have taken Maltese shoppers by storm, is a very good example of this. There is always a sale on products you considered the previous week. 

Another, interesting statistic is that you can actually increase the average spend of online shoppers by giving them free shipping if they spend above a certain threshold. Customers seem to value free shipping. Again, Amazon (another Maltese favourite) is investing in this with its Prime one-year membership as do a host of other sites. My point is that the drivers that motivate shoppers to buy have changed with the popularity of online shopping. 

I could go on, since the business research on the subject is very rich and detailed, but my point simply is that online consumers think and behave differently and we need to understand, anticipate and satisfy this. You simply can’t treat online shopping like traditional (bricks-and-mortar) shopping; it’s a completely different ball game.  

I, therefore, feel that Maltese businessmen have a huge opportunity they are not exploiting. Instead of concentrating on the local market they should be invest in their capability to sell to the online world since the market is infinitely larger.

Yet we all seem to be stuck in the traditional way of doing business. We seem to lack imagination and prefer to conduct business in this dog-eat-dog, copy-cat and over-competitive local market. 

As a new year’s resolution why doesn’t your business change its business model and really go online? Whilst the shopping psychology is different, the rewards are huge. Have a successful 2015!