No Shopping Cart Left Behind: The Buying Habits of Virtual Goods Consumers

Social Survey Conducted by Plimus, Inc. Finds Consumers Hassled By Online Shopping Experience

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Plimus Inc., the leader in complete, configured and connected hosted e-Business solutions, today released the results of a social survey on the buying habits of online consumers from a random, at large consumer survey via Facebook and Twitter. The survey provides a real-world perspective of the online shopping experience.

“Improving the payment process means increasing monetization and in an industry that doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, vendors can’t afford to lose sales.”

The “No Shopping Cart Left Behind: The Buying Habits of Virtual Goods Consumers” survey found:

• More than half of consumers are purchasing more online digital goods than they did last year
• Two thirds of survey participants indicated that ease of transaction is the most important factor when making online purchases
• More than 20 percent of respondents reported that sites with complex order forms keep them from completing a transaction
• One in five respondents would shop online more frequently if the checkout process was faster

As consumers purchase more online digital goods, they expect an improved customer experience. To capitalize on this strong consumer demand, vendors must not only create a quality product, they need to optimize the payment process.

According to Forrester Research, a leading market research firm, e-Commerce sales totaled $25 billion in 2010 with continued growth projected during the next 10 years. Given the success of this market, it would seem that online sellers have successfully mastered the art of converting their browsers into buyers. In the virtual world, however, all too often, shoppers do not buy. Shopping cart abandonment occurs frequently, leaving vendors in search of ways to convert the left-behind items into sales.

“Reducing a customer’s anxiety about making an online purchase is essential to the online shopping experience,” said Charlie Born, vice president of marketing at Plimus. “By providing single-click purchasing and repeat customer features with customizable order pages, Plimus enables a seamless checkout process for consumers, which consistently improves sales closure rates for vendors. While there are certainly other factors involved in purchasing decisions, eliminating unnecessary stress and hassle during the check out process helps vendors complete the sale.”

The Forrester findings confirm the difficulty vendors have converting shoppers into buyers. In a recent report, Forrester found that 88 percent of consumers have abandoned an online shopping cart without completing a purchase. Additionally, the study revealed that one in four consumers is more likely to abandon their carts now than in previous years. Vendors’ inability to keep browsers immersed during the transaction process is a key factor that contributes to shopping cart abandonment and missed sales.

“In order for vendors to capitalize on this emerging industry, they must create a frictionless transaction in which the selling point becomes part of the content experience,” said Born. “Improving the payment process means increasing monetization and in an industry that doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, vendors can’t afford to lose sales.”

About Plimus, Inc.

Plimus, Inc., a global e-Commerce solutions provider, builds, and manages online businesses for thousands of software publishers, Web hosting companies, and online retailers of digital goods and services. Plimus offers an easy-to-implement, configurable e-Business platform that allows companies to grow their e-Commerce business worldwide by marketing, selling and distributing digital goods and services online. The company’s award-winning e-Commerce Application is a flexible, hosted, and complete application that uniquely spans the entire e-Commerce lifecycle and is connected to a large global affiliate network. Plimus helps companies and publishers of all sizes maximize online revenues and reduce the costs and risks of running an e-Commerce operation. More information may be found at www.plimus.com.