Online shopping - an overview of the consumer decision making process
“We've learned that using a web site is a progressive process. Each user transitions from one stage to the next, as they work to accomplish their goal.
The most pronounced transitions we've seen are on e-commerce sites. When we watch shoppers focusing on buying a product, we can clearly see each stage and when the transitions fail or succeed. By understanding the stages and how they work, we can learn a lot about building better sites.
The stages act as a sieve: each stage inadvertently filtering shoppers out before they reach the next stage. By focusing on this filtering, we can see more users accomplish their goals.
To really see the sieve clearly, we study those shoppers who are completely intent on buying a product. They know what product they want, the web site has it, and they are ready to purchase.
Theoretically, every one of these shoppers should end up making a purchase. However, in our studies, sites frequently prevent these shoppers from completing transactions. By looking closely at the sieve, we can see where things are going wrong and get clues on what to fix .”
During my career as a project manager for the building of websites, and a business development consultant mainly in the WWW arena, I have taken part in the creation and management of several online shops (www.zer4u.co.il, www.theoutlet.co.il, www.dolittle.co.il), and as I see it, online shopping activity has grown a great deal in the past few years, but there’s still something missing. Studies show that out of 100 purchase-ready customers completely intended on buying a product, only 34 will accomplish their goals.
In this paper I will relate to this issue from the consumer’s decision-making process point of view.
The scope of the study, reaches those consumers who have already decided to make a purchase, and for some reason do not accomplish to complete the purchase process. Studies estimate that up to 75% of all shopping carts are abandoned before the sale is closed.
In order to analyze the abandoned shopping cart phenomenon, I will approach it from the consumers’ decision-making process point of view, and how it has changed while shopping in online environments, in respect to shopping in the traditional custom, i.e. physical shops. I will first map out the traditional consumer decision-making process, and then extend to the online experience. The online consumer is one who commits the shopping activity via a computer-based interface, where the consumer’s computer is connected to, and can interact with, a retailer’s digital storefront (implemented on some computer) through a network (e.g., the WWW).
The discussion of this paper will point out the differences in the consumer decision-making processes, and the conclusion will analyze the reasons for the massive consumer abandonment on the web in relation to physical shops.
click here to download complete doc file. by: Michal Moreno