Online buying decisions taking longer

A soon-to-be-released report on digital window shopping has found that online shoppers are currently taking longer to make a buying decision than they did a couple of years ago.

by Helen Leggatt

U.S. Security-certification company, ScanAlert, monitored 2.6 million online sales executed across 470 websites. They discovered that, over the last two years, the time between an online shopper making a buying decision and completing the transaction has risen considerably. In 2005, the average time taken was 19 hours. The ScanAlert data suggests this is now 34 hours.

The obvious reason is that consumers have more choice of Internet stores and plenty of tools to allow them to make many online comparisons. To this end, adding a tool that allows a shopper to save their shopping cart, so that it can be easily revisited at a later date, may reclaim some of those that move on.

Online shoppers are also reportedly spending more money online nowadays compared with two years ago. Evan Schuman of StorefrontBackstore speculates that this could mean more time is taken to consider a purchase. “It's not surprising that consumers would want to take more time—to consult with a spouse, to see if they get that hoped-for bonus, to see if that big sale really does come through—as they are considering more expensive items,” wrote Schuman.