Why many customers give up on shopping online
The future is now: these days, millions of items can be bought without ever having to leave your home — all thanks to a multitude of online stores that offer a convenient shopping experience, complete with a variety of discounts and special offers. The benefits of e-commerce are now apparent to everyone, and more and more people are ordering goods and services online: according to researchers, the number of customers shopping online will grow from 1.46 billion (2015) to over 2 billion people by 2020[1].
However, if you decide to examine the field closer or simply ask your relatives about it, you will learn that many people are surprisingly wary and distrustful when it comes to buying anything online.
[1] According to Statista.com
I didn’t order that!
This is a problem that emerged together with the rise of online shopping. Could you even imagine going to a real-life store to buy something that clearly doesn’t fit you at all — like a t-shirt that’s so big you can wear it like a dress, or a pair of ballet shoes instead of sneakers? Or even worse — something that leaves much to be desired and looks like the people who made it simply didn’t care? And yet searching the web for online shopping complaints, you will discover a sea of comments that go like this:
“right now I’m trying to figure out how to return an item bought from China that looks nothing like it was advertised — and it’s a nightmare!!! my English is not good, and store uses Google translate for everything. that’s okay if you want to buy something, but very very bad if you want to return what you bought :(((”[1]
The problem is so widespread, even one of us at Storiqa recalled a similar experience when we were discussing it:
“I ordered a men’s pyjamas with home delivery. Didn’t check the order when the courier was present, and that was a mistake — the seller sent me a women’s nightgown instead. So I had to call the seller, e-mail them the photos, describe the problem, wait for them to decide on a solution, find time to give the item back to the courier… All in all, it took me four business days to finally get the pyjamas I wanted.”
Long story short, the difference between how items are advertized and what items get shipped to you is a real problem — and people don’t want to take this risk, knowing they might have to face the headache of returning a bad purchase.
[1] Comments taken from https://lifehacker.ru/2013/11/18/return-in-online-store/ (translated from Russian)
If I buy an iPhone, I get an iPhone
And that is the truth. International brands subject everything they sell to meticulous scrutiny and offer high-quality service through their official stores. If you buy something from an international brand, be it clothing or gadgets, you will get exactly the item you ordered that fits the description and has passed the quality control.
But when you decide to order something unique, you’re treading on dangerous ground. There’s a demand for everything custom-built and custom-made — be it gifts for your friends, relatives and special ones, novelty items and unique design decisions, or anything that helps you look and feel unique. And thanks to the Internet, you can choose anything you want that suits your tastes — but how do you ensure these items are well-made? Who’s going to verify it? All you have is an item’s description in the maker’s personal online store and the photos that look professional, but there’s no guarantee that what you see is exactly what you get. (And while there are customer reviews that can alleviate this problem to a certain point, their credibility is already a problem of its own — and we’re going to discuss it in our future article.) So in a nutshell, if you want to shop online for something custom made, turns out what you really need is to… be lucky and believe that the seller actually ends up being trustworthy?
And That’s Why I Don’t Shop Online
This is indeed a major problem, and in our opinion, the only solution is to create a reliable and unbiased item verification center to ensure that all items shipped fit their description completely. Tomorrow we’re going to tell you how this solution will be implemented in Storiqa.
