New Survey Reveals What Shoppers Look For In Online Experience

With the global market for sex toys and pleasure products expected to explode, topping the $29 billion mark by 2020, according to a recent report by Technavio, online retailers will understandably be looking for any tips or advice to gain an advantage in an increasingly crowded market. A new survey of online shoppers—in all categories, not merely sexual products—may offer some guidance. Conducted by the online marketing consultant firm Namogoo, the survey’s findings were summarized this week in an infographic by the statistical research site Statista. Here’s what the survey, of 1,372 shoppers in December 2017, found: The number one feature desired by online shoppers as they look to make purchases off a website is, perhaps unsurprisingly, “clear product images.” Buyers who obviously can’t sample or test, or even touch, the products they’re looking to buy while shopping online are looking for the next best thing: high-quality images of those products. Nearly 90 percent—87.6, to be exact—of online shoppers named “clear product images” as their top priority in an online shopping experience. Product reviews from other consumers come in second at 78.1 percent, but less than one percentage point ahead of  “product descriptions” at 77.3 percent. An “easy checkout process” was nearly equal in importance with those previous two features, at 77.3 percent. “Easy search” and “simple navigation” at 69.3 and 55.8 percent respectively round out the list of online shopping features that more than half of all consumers prioritize. Perhaps surprisingly, because as of 2015, online shopping from mobile devices became “just as prevalent as desktop traffic,” according to the web consulting firm Outerbox, only 48.4 percent of the customers surveyed listed “easy to use on mobile devices” as important to a “great shopping experience.” The least important element of a “great” online retail experience? According to the Namogoo survey, only 20.9 percent of shoppers—just over one in five—see “product videos” as important to their shopping experience online. But that statistic may need its own research in the case of adult pleasure products, because seeing those products in action may indeed enhance the experience—or in any case be more captivating than a video of, say, a blender. Photo By SounderBruce / Wikimedia Commons