Merchants know how important it is to enhance the overall shopping experience they offer, regardless of channel.
This is evident in the fact that global merchants are providing their shoppers many cross-channel-capable shopping features to enhance their shopping experiences, according to The 2022 Global Digital Shopping Index, a PYMNTS and Cybersource collaboration that examines the behaviors of 13,114 consumers and 3,100 merchants across Australia, Brazil, the UAE, the U.K., the U.S. and Mexico.
Get the report: The 2022 Global Digital Shopping Index
Three of the shopping features that are most commonly offered are an easy way to handle disputes, fraud purchase refunds and product details. In the four nations PYMNTS has studied since 2020 (Australia, Brazil, the U.K. and the U.S.), these are made available by 82%, 81% and 80% of merchants, respectively.
Some other common shopping features are digital purchase refunds, purchase returns and live help. These are offered by 78%, 77% and 75% of merchants, respectively.
There are five cross-channel-capable shopping features that more global merchants provided to their customers in 2021 than in 2020.
Eighty-six percent of merchants offered rewards, coupons and promos in 2021, up from 45% in 2020.
Sixty-three percent of merchants offered price matching in 2021, up from 55% the year before.
Sixty percent offered digital profiles, up from 52%. These digital profiles store consumers’ personal information and can be accessed and used via mobile, via laptop and even in-store.
Fifty-nine percent offered mobile product finding, up from 50%. This feature gives brick-and-mortar shoppers smartphone-enabled capabilities they could use while shopping in stores.
Fifty-seven percent of merchants allowed shoppers to pick their eCommerce purchases up at in-store kiosks in 2021, compared with 50% in 2020. Providing in-store kiosks for online pickup orders can provide eCommerce shoppers a way to acquire their purchases without putting more stress on in-store employees.
The fact that merchants are adding more cross-channel-capable features shows in part that neither merchants nor consumers see shopping as a matter of brick-and-mortar versus online anymore — it’s all just shopping.
