Ahhh, the last-minute Christmas stir

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..rush! 🛒

 With the holiday season in full swing, retail and e-commerce markets are exploding with activity. From new trends in online shopping to the latest technology developments, here are the top stories that are making waves this week:

• Poor website user experience causes a staggering 60% of customers to abandon their shopping carts leading to billions in losses for e-commerce companies.
• Google and e-commerce websites will likely continue to rely on CAPTCHA as an essential tool in their battle against bots.
• As inflation continues to bite, consumers rely on apps for financial relief.
• Amazon bows to the E.U.'s demands by agreeing to amend its operational methods.

   Top Retail and E-commerce Stories

#AbandonmentIssues: 60% of Customers Walk Away Because of Poor User Experience

Please don't go! Storyblok released startling findings regarding the staggering financial burden of inadequate website design for international e-commerce organizations. Their survey of 6,000 shoppers from both the U.S. and Europe uncovered that a staggering 60% admitted they had left items in their cart due to an unsatisfying experience on webpages. This means:

• E-commerce businesses are losing an average amount of 5 sales per customer each year
• 8% abandon more than 10 orders because of inadequate online shopping performance
• The top reasons customers abandon an e-commerce website are: limited payment options (37%), subpar navigation and layout (37%), and slow loading speeds (33%).

Side Note: Here's tricks to the Best E-Commerce Website Layout

 The CEO and Founder of Storyblok, Dominik Angerer, shares "Consumers want easy to navigate, intuitively designed, and fast loading websites. However, a lot of e-commerce websites are falling short. Five purchases per shopper in missed sales may not seem like a lot, but when you scale this up to the number of potential new customers businesses are missing out on, it becomes a very significant amount of money."

 Regarding purchasing decisions, a whopping 56% of people stated that referrals from family and friends influence their purchasing behaviors. Additional data shows that social media has more of an influence on U.S. shoppers than on European shoppers concluding that 48% of Americans prefer seeing products on social media platforms compared to 35% of Europeans. 

 Don't end up like those other abandoned carts, learn how to increase your website conversions. 

 Read More about the poor website user experience that is causing customers to walk.

CAPTCHA: A Tool to Stop Bots in Their Tracks

The unsung hero of the e-commerce world. Google and other e-commerce websites have long relied on CAPTCHA as a tool to distinguish between humans and bots. Cybersecurity professionals have exclaimed that CAPTCHA tools, which are intended to identify humans from bots, have failed due to aiming at us instead of machines. The consequence for e-commerce companies is a large number of deserted sales transactions.

 Google, the parent company of RECAPTCHA, is always upgrading its product and according to cyber professionals, this form of bot detection technology has a lasting role in combination with other modernized digital defense models.

 The feelings consumers face with e-commerce cybersecurity are relatively split down the middle when it comes to CAPTCHA. The data shows that those within the Generation X and Baby Boomer generations are the most frustrated. According to the Director of the Center for Innovation Technology Policy at Princeton University, Prateek Mittal, an alternative option would be to only present CAPTCHAs when a user first creates an account or profile on a website. However, this idea isn't completely foolproof as it could decrease the number of cybersecurity checkpoints that are in place. 

 Technology and machines, as we know, are not perfect. The key will be to keep consumers in the loop as data innovations and systems are being optimized for errors.

 Read More about CAPTCHA and how it affects e-commerce.  

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