Poor-quality websites are costing businesses billions in lost sales

Retail app
(Image credit: Pexels)

A poorly built ecommerce site could be costing your business big-time in lost sales, especially in the lead up to Black Friday, a new report from Google has claimed.

The report, based on a survey of more than 10,000 consumers all over the world, as well as 200 website managers in the United States, states that search abandonment (consumers abandoning a website because they couldn’t find what they were searching for) costs in excess of $300 billion annually in the US alone. 

Of the 10,000 consumers polled, 76% reported that they abandoned the retailer after failing to find what they were looking for. Almost half (48%) found, and purchased the desired item, elsewhere. As a matter of fact, more than half (52%) would typically abandon their entire shopping cart after failing to find a single item. 

A positive experience leads to more spending

The pandemic has forced most people to shop online, and for many of them - it was a first-time experience. Google claims 75% of consumers recently “tried a new shopping behavior” as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The problem is quite pervasive, too. Almost all consumers globally (94%) said they often get irrelevant results when searching on a retailer’s website. For almost nine in ten (88%) of website managers in the U.S., search abandonment is a problem, while for 84%, it hurts brand loyalty.

On a more positive note - those that do find everything they were looking for, will usually spend a little extra. More than two-thirds (69%) of consumers said they’d buy additional items, after a successful search experience, and almost all agree (99%) they’re at least somewhat likely to shop again. 

A well-built website, with a good search engine, will boost a retailer’s revenues, Google concluded. According to the report, after using Google Cloud Retail Search, Macy’s saw a 2% increase in conversion and a 1.3% increase in revenue per visit.

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Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.

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