Study equates ecommerce to dating

In their report, 'Customer Relationships: The Dating Game', OrderDynamics compares retailing to, well, dating. By this they mean wooing a customer and then taking that relationship further. The study was conducted with more than 60 retailers and 2,000 consumers and looked at various stages of a relationship including the 'first date', or first purchase, and long term relationships.

One of the reports key findings was that three-quarters of retailers promote irrelevant items to shoppers. That's like taking a vegetarian out on a first date to a hog roast. In addition, a third of retailers (33%) never follow up with shoppers, never a good look after a first date, while some go overboard and bombard their new customer with emails, like a stalker.

Other report findings include:

- While 46% of shoppers prefer to head directly to a retailer's website to search for products, many retailers' websites have poor site search;

Consumers value the ability to be able to track orders yet only 15% of retailers provide this function;

"Our message to retailers is simple: customer relationships are theirs to win or lose, and retailers must focus on these disconnects in their customers' experiences to succeed during the vital holiday push. They must use data more intelligently and effectively in order to engage and win shoppers," said Kevin Sterneckert, CMO, OrderDynamics. "Retailers must walk a fine line between romancing customers and over-approaching them to ensure that shopping is a seamless experience. If retailers disappoint shoppers, they risk losing not only the initial sale but the customer relationship as well."

Image via Shutterstock

Tags: customer relationship, ecommerce, email, marketing, research, retail