Consumers are cautious with their spending, so retailers must maximize every interaction in the purchase funnel. Here are three ways retailers may be leaving money behind, and what you can do about it.
This can manifest as signage or website pages lacking enough visual contrast for colorblind users. Over 90% of consumers who experience a challenge like that don’t contact the business, according to the Click-Away Pound Report.
“They just take their business elsewhere,” our Jeremy Goldman said on the “Behind the Numbers: Reimagining Retail” podcast. “That’s leaving money on the table.”
Walmart has made its store more accessible, offering low-sensory shopping times during the 2023 holiday season for customers sensitive to music and light in-store, said our analyst Sarah Marzano. The No. 1 reason respondents to a CivicScience survey said they’d shop online this holiday season was to avoid crowds.
Promotions and discounting are tactics retailers frequently lean on to hit immediate sales goals, but that can be a mistake, said Marzano.
“They get caught up using promotions as a lever to drive conversion in the short term, but what gets very dangerous is that you can really erode the value of the brand,” she said.
To cater to shoppers feeling inflation’s effect, many brands have conditioned people to convert only when they see a sales price. Deep discounters like Shein and Temu have made competing on price nearly impossible.
“I think it is paramount for retailers to get a bit more strategic around how they're approaching discounts and promotion and really align that to their goal,” Marzano said.
Goldman said that retailers need to become more prescriptive about how and when they offer discounts.
“It drives me crazy, giving a discount to somebody who was willing to pay full price,” he said. "Retailers say that they're so great at personalization, but they’re often following a promotional calendar and most people are getting the same thing. It's such an easy thing to get even incrementally better at.”
The point of purchase, particularly on mobile, is where many consumers get frustrated and abandon their carts, said Goldman.
“Retailers that don’t optimize their mobile checkout are missing out on a significant portion of sales,” he said. “Obviously, do anything that you can to streamline the checkout process.”
This includes asking consumers for information that is unnecessary to process and ship their order. Be transparent. Don’t hit shoppers with surprise shipping and handling costs right before they make that last click.
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