The Flex Shopper: Mobile, Efficient, and Demanding Convenience from Retailers

Ecommerce continues to grow, and consumers are spending more money online as well as upping the frequency. Led by growth in China, the United States, and the United Kingdom, new opportunities abound for businesses who can meet the needs of the increasingly mobile, increasingly informed, and increasingly demanding ecommerce shopper.

Introducing the “Flex Shopper”

Defined as the “Flex Shopper” by a recent UPS and ComScore study, this person is defined as ruthlessly efficient at learning about and making his or her purchase, finding a way to get from desire to purchase with the fewest possible hurdles. Knowing this, the modern flex shopper is one who:

• Is comfortable using a wide variety of devices—laptop, tablet, smartphone—best suited to personal convenience during the path to purchase.
• Is comfortable switching channels at will, researching online and purchasing in store or vice versa.
• Demands a near-perfect and seamless shopping experience across every channel.

While this type of shopper is most prolific in technologically adept Asian countries, retailers across the world need to find ways to appease the flex shopper, creating a unified experience from phone to tablet to computer to store.

How Retailers Can Meet Flex Shopper Needs

The UPS/ComScore whitepaper paints a picture of the flex shopper’s preferences, noting three ways that brands can provide better service using the acronym ACT.

• Alternative Options: The global online shopper is increasingly interested in alternative options and choices, ranging from new delivery options to new payment options.
• Convenience and Capabilities: For today’s global consumer, convenience takes several forms. In addition to returns preferences and free and flexible delivery options, constant technological advances have led to a new range of in-store shopping conveniences and capabilities, which will play a more significant role in the future shopping experience. Top demands of shoppers globally include free shipping, ship-to-store, delivery alerts, and delivery pre-authorization.
• Transferrable Experience between Site and Store: Consumers want a consistent and positive online shopping experience across all channels and the store remains important. Retailers must optimize their mobile, online and in-store shopping experience and bridge the three for a seamless customer experience. Consumers offer high ratings for the online experience, while showing less satisfaction with the in-store experience, and are looking for improvements to the mobile experience.

Improving the Experience

To meet the needs of Flex Shoppers, the study shared a wide variety of needs throughout the process, from searching for information to purchase, as well as how retailers can improve the return process:

The Beginning of the Customer Journey

While mobile is seeing increased adoption, the majority of consumers begin research online using a desktop or laptop.

Noting this, many consumers begin their process by going either directly to a website (Amazon, store site), opting for this as opposed to that of a search engine.

Completing the Purchase Moves In-Store

The in-store aspect does become more popular for multi-channel consumers when it comes to purchasing an item:

Retailer Takeaway: Make smartphone purchasing easier for the consumer.

The Consumer Path to Purchase and Pickup

Driven by convenience, consumers are taking a wide variety of approaches in their path to purchase, as displayed in the graph below.

Retailer Takeaway: Ship to Store Still a Good Path: In this, shipping to store remains a popular option for consumers, despite the low numbers listed above. Consumers in the U.S. and Europe have done this the most (54% and 47%, respectively), while only 32% of Asia consumers have shipped to store at some point. For retailers, getting the customer in store provides the opportunity to sell additional items to the customer throughout the process.

Checkout and Shipping Preferences

While consumers are generally satisfied with the online experience (outside of Asia), each location studied has different preferences with different aspects of checkout and purchase.

Merchant Takeaway: A Path to Free Shipping: Globally, three in four consumers rate free shipping as important. The majority of all consumers will take an action to qualify for free shipping, usually adding an additional item to reach a minimum threshold or choosing the slowest delivery time. For merchants, adding an incremental spend needed to meet free shipping threshold is a best practice.

What Goes into Satisfaction in Returns?

Globally, 55% of consumers say that free shipping on returns, which is the top rated factor in each region, creates a positive returns experience.

Merchant Takeaway: Easy, Free Returns: Consumers everywhere want hassle-free return options and the ability to contact customer service for purchases made online. They also want free returns, including free shipping and no restocking fees:

• Make returns policies easy to find and easy to follow
• Simplify the exchange process and expedite credits to encourage repeat purchases
• A satisfied shopper who has an easy time with returns is likely to become a loyal customer

Conclusion: Meeting the Needs of the Global Flex Shopper

The best way to keep customers coming back it to keep them satisfied from search to purchase, as well as during the return process. We welcome you to download the entire report, “The Pulse of the Global Online Shopper,” from UPS, featuring full country reports and takeaways for readers.

Stay up to date with all the latest in Ecommerce news by following @WEXincNews on Twitter, and reading the following resources:

• Contextual Commerce, Part 1: Taking Contextual Marketing to the Next Level
• Contextual Commerce, Part 2: Shopping For Tomorrow’s Consumer
• A Brief History of Payments: From Stones to Phones [Infographic]
• Social Commerce: Mobile Shopping Made Easy
• The Millennial Generation is Shaping the Future of Payments
• Millennials: How They Pay Today
• Digital Gift Cards and the Rise of Omnicommerce
• An Introduction to Direct Carrier Billing
• Barriers to use of Mobile Payments
• The Next Big Thing? Wearable Payments
• Social Media and P2P Payments: A Brief Overview
• How Subscription Retailers can Avoid Involuntary Churn