Only 15 per cent of consumers are happy with their online shopping experience, according to research among 4,000 customers.

Analytics company Contentsquare commissioned research among shoppers across the UK, the US, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland and found the top three causes of “customer unhappiness” when shopping online are: pop-ups and adverts (49 per cent), site or app crashes during checkout (48 per cent) and discount codes not working at checkout (45 per cent).

Other elements of online shopping unhappiness are consumers not finding what they are looking (42 per cent) and websites or apps going offline (23 per cent).

The research shows that for almost a third, online shopping is associated with “boredom, frustration and even anxiety”. Of all the respondents, 30 per cent reported feeling merely “content” with their digital shopping experience.

With 37 per cent of respondents saying they will avoid physical stores this holiday, the lack of enthusiasm for online shopping is even more worrying.

Jonathan Cherki, chief executive at Contentsquare, said: “The end goal of any great digital experience should be to ensure customers leave your app, site or online store happier than when they arrived.

“The days of talking about customer ‘satisfaction’ or judging success based on NPS scores are over. Now, as encounters in the physical space become more distanced and remote, brands must endeavour to make more meaningful, emotional connections with their customers.”

Cherki said the need to build positive experiences online will be accelerated in 2021, with Google launching a new ranking algorithm designed to judge web pages based on user experiences.

It will score a webpage on a number of areas of a site’s pages, including load time, interactivity and the stability of content as it loads.

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