Delivery: Consumers Just Want Their Purchase!
One of the most important aspects of the E-commerce user experience is the shipment of the product. Consumers are using online resources to shop more efficiently in terms of time spent obtaining the product. Driving to a store locally that provides the exact price range that the consumer is willing to spend takes a lot for time out of the consumer’s busy life style. Driving to different stores locally can take hours, but on shops like amazon.com they cut the shopping time down for the consumer. Dealing with long delivery times can be a frustrating situation for customer that could lead to not completing a purchase when checking out.
The best way to illustrate the importance of delivery is to look at a real life problem that exists for consumers. For example, in my own life I was a consumer that was used to quick delivery times ranging same day to next day for the majority of my orders in New York City. Currently, I am living in the state of Hawaii, which is the most geographically isolated group of islands in the world. Coming from New York City, that excelled at delivering products and now having moved to a place where delivery times vary, but on the average take 7 business days is disappointing. Even the speedy Amazon Prime does not guarantee any delivery times faster than 3 to 7 business days at the earliest. This is a problem for a busy consumer who sometimes needs a product quickly. What is a girl to do when she needs a product that isn’t available in her state?
When the consumer comes across a product that does not provide delivery times it takes away the guarantee of the product arriving by a certain date. What is important here is what are the expectations of your consumers. Most people are not willing to accept long delivery times and will take their business to another online store front. For me having lived in New York City I had skewed expectations in Honolulu. Retail Times states that 90% of 18-24 year olds would shop online more if they had convenient delivery options. Across all different age groups 68% of shoppers have been discouraged by the delivery options available. 61% of rural individuals are willing to wait 2 plus days to get a delivery, while 34% of individuals in urban environments are not willing to wait longer than a day for a delivery.
Delivery options are particularly important when it comes to certain holidays throughout the year where there is a high level of gift giving. On these particular days delivery times are extremely important. Especially when there are shoppers who have waited to the last minute to shop for their holiday gift needs. Also online shopping holidays such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday garner a certain level of expectations for delivery options.
Having a wide variety of delivery options encourages the shopper to shop online more because it guarantees a certain level of gratification. Some retailers are offering membership programs where the shipping is free while others are charging a small monetary cost to ship the product. However, giving the shopper a choice to spend more or less money for quicker delivery or slower delivery times is very important. What are some of the expectations of consumers to have a good delivery experience? Consumers have these expectations: clear and reliable tracking, active and appropriate levels of communication with the customer, reasonable shipping costs, and excellent support for the delivery.
To conclude the retailers need to make an effort to provide this delivery times to their shoppers. Not having these present could cause for the online store to forgo a potential client. Remember the more precise the better. Consumers just want their purchase!
