Advertising drives online shoppers up the wall
The biggest annoyance for customers when shopping online is unwanted advertising, as a new survey by the Berlin-based digital association Bitkom shows.
"After an online purchase, you may continue to receive advertising from the provider for months. This is particularly annoying if you only bought a product for a specific, one-off occasion, such as an upcoming wedding, or if the ads don't go beyond what you were initially looking for," says Bitkom-trade expert Julia Miosga told the Pressetext news agency.
Once a product such as a bed frame has been purchased, customers no longer need advertising for other bed frames. Advertisements for products such as bed linen or mattresses are more helpful. In many online stores, customers regularly receive advertising even though they have not consented to it. On social media channels, customers can sometimes click to indicate that the advertising is not relevant to them personally, but it is still displayed afterwards. These are factors that easily annoy users.
For the survey, 1054 online shoppers were asked about negative experiences when shopping. Four out of ten respondents (42 percent) have often received unsolicited advertising from an online store, 38 percent have had this experience rather rarely. The other negative experiences are much less frequent. 18 percent have often received deliveries too late, while 67 percent have rarely experienced this. One in ten have often received goods that did not match the description.
Rare problems include undelivered goods (frequently experienced by six percent), damaged goods (five percent), fraud when shopping online, for example through counterfeit products (four percent) - or misused payment details (three percent). The customer service of online stores has a good reputation. Only nine percent of respondents have often had difficulties with customer service. For more than half (54%), this was rarely the case, and 29% had never had a problem with customer service.
According to Miosga, online shoppers can prevent such negative experiences. Signs that a store is reputable include an imprint with the name and address of the managing director and clear terms and conditions. "Some stores are checked by independent experts and receive a certificate or seal. Customers can also carry out good checks themselves. They rate retailers accordingly on many shopping, price comparison and auction sites," says Miosga. (pte/red)
