It appears e-commerce players do not understand their customers’ expectations. That is the gist of what the Storyblok study has revealed, a finding published by Comarketing News.

The survey, which questioned 6,000 customers and 500 business leaders at medium-sized e-commerce companies across the US and Europe, shows that a vast majority of these companies (77%) believe technological innovations such as chatbots greatly enhance the user experience, whereas only 27% of consumers agree. 

Conversely, e-commerce professionals, only 28% of whom place importance on improving the design of their website, underestimate the importance their customers place on the ergonomics aesthetics and design of an e-commerce website: in reality, Internet users actually believe that the most important factors for a satisfactory online experience are ease of navigation (65%), visual appeal (50%), and simple design (45%). Figures that demonstrate a large divide when it comes to the priorities of e-commerce players (being on the cutting edge of innovations, constantly offering new functions) and the real expectations of their customers, who prefer to visit e-commerce websites with faultless fundamentals: a clear and easily understandable offering and a smooth purchase path devoid of irritations.

Finally, customers and e-commerce retailers do agree on one subject (which just so happens to be one of the basics of e-commerce): the website loading speed, which they deem to be essential. 42% of consumers said they decide whether to stay on or leave a website within 10 seconds and almost half of e-commerce businesses (47%) confirmed that their website loading time was a “top priority”.