Online florists should communicate shipping costs to customers as a way to combat a perception that online flowers cost more than offline, concludes a new study by Web Mystery Shoppers International Inc.
"Prices may not actually be higher online," says Tema Frank, founder and president of Edmonton, AB-based Web Mystery Shoppers International, "but shoppers are left feeling that they are over-paying. Shipping costs are hidden--73% of respondents didn't know the total costs before they had to give their personal credit card information."
115 mystery shoppers evaluated FTD.com, 1stinflowers.com, Flowers.com,
Proflowers.com and Urbanflorist.com in December and January. Nearly 30% said shipping prices were so high they would not buy from these sites, the study reports.
Another major concern is site responsiveness, Web Mystery Shoppers says. 34% of shoppers got error messages when trying to place their orders. Those messages may have been the result of a system error or a consumer error, such as inputting a credit card number with spaces when the system requires no spaces. “To the consumer it doesn’t matter,” Frank says. “All the consumer knows is that she had a hassle in trying to place the order.” Error rates ranged from 20% to 45%, Frank says.
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