By Gemma Simpson, 12 November 2007 12:07
NEWS
Online sales will reach £40bn this year with cyber shoppers forking out £162bn by 2020, research predicts.
Online sales accounted for only two per cent of the total retail spend in 2002 but price-comparison site uSwitch.com predicts it will reach 16 per cent by the end of this year and more than 40 per cent by 2020.
And going online also makes more financial sense as UK consumers could save more than £13bn per year by shopping this way, with each household saving £500 per year on everyday shopping and essential bills, according to figures from the Centre for Economics and Business Research.
silicon.com Retail & Leisure
Get the latest retail and leisure news straight to your inbox. Sign up for the R&L newsletter today!
In total, 13.5 million consumers are shopping online and spending an average of four days per year doing so, said uSwitch.com.
But the vast majority (86 per cent) of online consumers suffer some sort of difficulty in making a purchase, with 37 per cent of those who experience problems with an online transaction preferring to abandon it altogether, according to a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive for customer service software specialist Tealeaf.
Comments
There is 1 comment. Join the discussion
1. misceng
Information missing or hidden.
It is likely from my experience that these are the reasons for abandoning attempts to purchase on the web. Too often it is difficult to find out if items are in stock and how much it will cost to get them delivered. Giving such data up front would make people more confident that they could trust the supplier. The other assurance should be that the credit card will not be debitted until the goods are despatched.
I have had my card debitted at the instant of ordering and 14 days later the company admitted that they did not have the goods in stock and did not know when they would get them. needless to say I am now wary.