What do consumers expect from your brand online?
RESEARCH REPORT AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD.
A Post Pandemic Digital World
The world of eCommerce has witnessed dramatic peaks and troughs since the inception of the internet back in 1983. From the first online transaction in 1994, through to the dot-com bubble that shook the global economy in 2000, the eCommerce landscape has had to constantly adjust and evolve to meet ever changing consumer demands and expectations. Today more than five billion or 63% of the world’s population are connected to the internet.
For many of these consumers the pandemic period of 2020 to 2022 represented their first experience of a brand online. Brands that offered consumers a frictionless and enjoyable online experience during this period benefited from unprecedented online sales. Perhaps more importantly, brands who met or exceeded these consumers expectations online, have developed new long-term relationships with consumers that continue into this new post pandemic world.
Over the past three years, as part of our ongoing research on the Irish eCommerce market, we have observed the rapid and unnatural growth of online sales. This growth however is now starting to plateau due to headwinds driven by lower consumer sentiment and the impact of rising inflation on consumers wallets.
In July 2022, Amazon reported its first global loss since 2015, admitting that they expanded too aggressively during the pandemic and were ill-prepared for the slowing demand and higher cost that has emerged this year. Echoing this, in August 2022, AIB reported a 17% drop in online sales in the Irish market compared to the same period in 2021, highlighting another change in the eCommerce landscape that will impact brands in all sectors of the economy.
Digital Wellbeing
In this new Post Pandemic world, consumers will continue to be bombarded with an ever growing plethora of digital messages, notifications and advertisements with the objective of driving consumers to make an online purchase.
To cope with this bombardment, many consumers choose to block out or ignore these messages. Attracting and retaining consumer attention online has and will continue to be one of the biggest challenges facing marketers in this new world.
This research conducted over the past three years highlights what consumers value from a brand online, what consumers expect from an online user experience and how to form a lasting relationship with consumers online that aligns with their digital wellbeing in this new Post Pandemic Digital world.
Within this article we will touch on some of the areas we have tracked since the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Ireland. These insights have informed many of the Core Digital Optimiser UX studies we have delivered and include;
Adopted digital behaviours from the pandemic
The impact of inflation on consumer online spend
Perceptions of Irish websites vs international websites
Factors that build lasting relationships with consumers
