Some interesting observations recently by Andrew McGregor, CEO of eCommera, in the MultichannelRetailer.com.

“The recession has been bad news for the high street but online retailers have seen real growth because of the benefits they offer to consumers. Price is an obvious benefit of shopping online as it’s far easier to shop around online for a bargain by visiting multiple retailers’ websites or using price comparison sites. But greater choice, a flexible range of delivery options and the convenience of shopping at any time of day and taking delivery without ever having to queue in-store or seek for a parking space, is also critical and clearly driving growth in online sales.”

This is certainly an opinion that we at Shutl would subscribe to. Improved delivery options, amongst many other elements, are attracting more and more people to shop online. The marked progress in this area is slowly but surely overcoming the major hurdle of having to wait days for inconvenient delivery windows, and ultimately presenting potential shoppers with a major barrier to completing their online purchase.

As our friend Huw Thomas of Paul Mason Consulting mentioned in his presentation at the Retail Systems Multichannel Retail Summit, now is a time when many retailers are wrongly spending time and effort evaluating costly upgrades to their e-Commerce platforms so that they can have all the ‘whistles and bells’. The shrewd ones, by contrast, are focusing on improving the last mile of the customer journey. Why? Because any retailer’s web experience can be mindblowingly good. It can win heaps of awards, and it can be stand head and shoulders above any of its competitors. However, the better that online experience, the higher the expectation that is set in the mind of the shopper… and it goes without saying that if that expectation is ultimately savaged by a poor delivery experience (and let’s face it – we all know what that is), it does nothing but leave a very sour taste in the mind of your customer. And for all those ‘whistles and bells’ on the front end, customers will vote with their feet. And they won’t return. And they’ll tell their friends.

For retailers looking at giving their online sales a further boost, the number one issue you should be looking is the delivery options that you currently offer to your customers and how well they’re communicated as part of your core value proposition. Offering a truly customer-centric delivery service will not cost your business a penny, and will put an end to the two thirds of your shoppers who are currently abandoning their shopping carts because of costly and inconvenient delivery options. It’ll also increase your existing conversion rates and AOV by as much as 35% (often much more…)

Of course, that’s not to say that the front-end web experience is not important! It absolutely is. Just that retailers looking to get the best bang for their buck should maybe readdress their priorities.