Amazon 'go-to' if preferred brand's site fails

A poor performing website will encourage loyal online shoppers to redirect their traffic elsewhere, reveals a new study.

The e-commerce study from Digital River titled ‘Go your own way: How brands can take control of their customer relationship online’ found that 78% of online shoppers would turn to Amazon following poor-performing websites.

The study further found that 89% of people would visit a brand’s website when shopping online, yet 31% would “change allegiance” to a rival brand if they couldn’t buy an item directly online.

Quizzing 1,000 UK consumers, the study highlighted consumer willingness to purchase directly from their preferred brands site – with only 22% opting for the real thing.

The study highlighted the strong importance of having a well-working e-commerce capability.

Respondents expressed frustrations with brands that offer direct e-commerce at present, but whose sites are awkward, time consuming or inadequate to navigate. Among the brands that get it wrong were Nokia, Diesel and Black and Decker.

“Nokia’s phone prices are always very inflated compared to other sites,” said one respondent.