Holiday Digital Disconnect Looms Between Merchants And Consumers

Digital Disconnect Between Merchants, Consumers

The holidays are here. So, too, is a spike in COVID-19 cases. With a resurgence in public health concerns, it makes sense that commerce would increasingly skew digital, with the comfort of … well, touching as little as possible.

Consumers want to pay by mobile means, headed into what is arguably the traditional “make or break” period for retailers that lasts from Thanksgiving through the end of the year. Yet merchants are proving a bit slow to adapt and cater to those consumers’ desires, and especially on specific features of commerce flows that may in fact lead consumers to stay and close the sale …or walk away.

The disconnect may be found at the (proverbial) register – and to merchants’ detriment.

As noted in the most recent edition of the PYMNTS Global Digital Shopping Index – a collaboration between PYMNTS and CyberSource, spanning 2,200 consumers and 500 merchants – shopping is crystallizing across two distinct, bifurcated channels: physical and digital. PYMNTS’ research found that where the searching and browsing are done (in-store or online), is where the purchases are made.

Yet those two distinct avenues of shopping share at least one commonality: the consumers’ desire to make purchases through digital means.

The Index found that shoppers’ preferences for digital channels have grown markedly, by a multiple of 1.6x. That’s as measured by 27 percent of purchases in March and 43 percent in July. At the same time, as measured in July, the share of curbside pickup (which has a physical component) has grown, from 10.8 percent of purchases when the pandemic first took root up to as much as 15.5 percent in July. Consumers are increasingly valuing mobile and contactless options.

The digital shopping experience, made so necessary and urgent as COVID-19 hit, now has informed and set expectations for shopping in-store. The Index found that, per the consumer satisfaction index, online and mobile natives – those most comfortable with digital shopping – have the highest scores, while brick-and-mortar shoppers lagged behind. (The best-performing merchants offer more than two dozen features across ordering, delivery and protection in anticipation of what consumers want in terms of flexibility and choice).

And coming into the end of the year, there is a marked disconnect between where merchants have invested time and money in sprucing up features and appealing to consumers and what those consumers want (and which cuts across channels). Consider the fact that 56 percent of consumers consider free shipping on digital orders to be important, but only 32 percent of merchants share that view.

Elsewhere, nearly 50 percent of consumers view fraud purchase refunds as being important, while roughly 30 percent of merchants do. That speaks to a disconnect that may prove a challenge for consumer satisfaction and stickiness in a holiday season that may see increased fraud attempts – and, of course, the ever-present specter that people may want to return gifts.

Rough sledding ahead, perhaps, for merchants that are slow to respond.

Read More On Holidays: