A study reveals the biggest annoyances for ecommerce customers in the holidays

A lot of shoppers get frustrated and leave a website if it takes too long to load, according to a new survey by Contentsquare. The survey also found that many customers change their minds about buying something if they have trouble with a discount code at checkout.

Online shoppers have a lot of complaints about holiday shopping, a new survey by Contentsquare shows. Some of the things that make them angry are:

Websites that are too slow (20%)
Too many pop-ups (19%)
Items that are sold out (19%)
No easy ways to pay like Apple Pay or PayPal (17%)

Bad search results or websites that don’t work on mobile (both 9%) Discount codes that don’t work (8%) John O’Melia from Contentsquare said that online shoppers want a smooth and hassle-free experience. He said that shoppers are more likely to leave their carts or click angrily on the website if they face these problems. He said that retailers who don’t fix these issues will lose a lot of customers and sales.

Table of Contents

Key Reasons for Cart Abandonment During Holiday Shopping

A lot of shoppers said they would leave a website or app if it’s too slow, according to a new survey by Contentsquare. The survey also said that many shoppers might not buy something if they have problems with a discount code at the checkout page. Some other things that stopped shoppers from buying were no free shipping (25%) and a slow or crashing checkout page (15%).

Also read:

How to shop online securely during the holiday season

Most Compelling Holiday Purchases for Consumers

A lot of shoppers said they want to buy luxury items (27%) for the holidays, according to a new survey by Contentsquare. Other popular things to buy were gift cards (16%), clothes and shoes (15%), electronics (12%), and toys (11%).

Contentsquare also looked at how shoppers behave online during the holidays. They found that more people are online daily (67% more) and more people use their phones to shop (72% to 77%). People also leave websites less often and spend more time on them. But they also make up their minds faster than usual.

Contentsquare’s 2023 holiday consumer survey also found:

A lot of shoppers said they will shop as much or more than last year, according to a new survey by Contentsquare. Most of them will start shopping on the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend. Most of them will also shop online, and many like to do it on their couch in front of their TV. The survey also said that most shoppers prefer to shop online on weekdays.

Contentsquare shows that social media is not that important for holiday shopping. Some people (36%) use social media to get ideas for gifts, and some people (13%) buy things directly from apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. But most people (69%) don’t care what social media influencers say. They don’t let them influence their buying decisions.

Contentsquare shows that people care about how websites or apps make them feel. More than half of the people (56%) said they told others to use websites or apps that they liked. But some people (10%) also warned others not to use websites or apps that they hated.

Consumers window shop, but online: More than one-third of shoppers (34%) spend the majority of their time online browsing e-commerce websites or apps, the digital equivalent of window shopping.
Mobile site vs. app preferences: Thirty-three percent (33%) of shoppers prefer to shop on a website via their mobile device, while only 13% prefer to shop on a brand’s app.

Contentsquare asked 649 people in the US about their holiday shopping in November 2023. They sent them an email and made sure they had the same number of men and women. If you want to know more about the survey, you can ask Contentsquare for more details.