Modeling and Prediction of Human Shopping Behavior
This research is still ongoing with some questions unanswered yet.
On average, 71% of shopping carts are abandoned. This observation is the chief concern among ecommerce retailers. But progressive online merchants and those companies which support them are tracking many online shopping behaviors to better align their services with new consumer trends. One of the key questions to answer is why consumers behave the way they do so they can determine how to incorporate digital media at crucial times to influence buyers' decisions. By uncovering a buyer's specific informational or emotional needs during the purchase process, digital retailers can brainstorm how to deliver the right content at the right times to fulfill them. These online shopping behaviors interest all savvy retailers. As found, the major factors causing loss of potential sales are:
- Short attention span: When customers enter keywords into their favorite search engines, they don't have the patience to sort through pages of results. Online ecommerce sites that don't make it on the first pages of results simply won't be looked at often. Search engine optimization (SEO) can push site rankings higher on the list.
- Distaste For information overload: Consumers prefer brief product summaries when viewing merchandise for the first time. Too much information in a inefficient, unorganized manner will turn consumers off.
- Cost of item is directly proportional to the time spent in consideration of purchase. Selling a variety of price ranges will help target the impulse buyers who don't wish to spend much time thinking about a purchase.
- Online media and competitive pricing: as competing items' prices are readily available from the internet, competition has risen sharply, as consumers can now easily compare a wide range of prices quickly and conveniently.
- Social Media and Marketing: If you don't already have a social media presence, it's time to establish one. Use social media sites to showcase your company's human side by offering special discounts and contests, promoting your employees, and offering ad-enabled games and price-comparison widgets. Make all of your content shareable to increase your brand exposure.
Questions remain:
- Are those "abandoners" eventually buying those products?
- Are those "abandoners" coming back to our site again at all?
- Is abandonment is really bad?
- What else we can do to make them come back and buy?