Survey: How Real-Time Data Can Help Close Cyber Monday Sales

E-commerce retailers are gearing up for what they hope will be record sales on Nov. 30, Cyber Monday. But there’s a challenge: While more than 95 percent of shoppers plan to or will shop online this season, 85 percent admit they have abandoned a shopping cart at least once, according to a survey by Talend, a data integration and management provider.

The reasons for shopping-cart abandonment range from cost to frustration with the checkout process. Talend said there is a solution: real-time data.

The company announced in a Nov 15 release that using real-time data to provide instant incentives to customers in the check-out process could reduce abandonment by 30 percent or more. They cited Otto Group, one of the world’s largest online retailers that is competing with Amazon. Otto gained hundreds of millions in what would have been lost revenue by using real-time data to predict when carts would be abandoned and to push instant incentives.

The most popular incentive by far is free shipping. Thirty-five percent of consumers surveyed said they would complete their order if they received a real-time free shipping promotion while on the site. Twenty-six percent indicated that a discount would be enough to keep them from abandoning their cart. In contrast, sending discounts via an email reminder after they’ve left the site was 50 percent less effective in preventing abandonment.

“Every second matters when it comes to closing an online sale,” said Ashley Stirrup, chief marketing officer, Talend. “Until now, the ability to mine the deluge of customer behavioral data for answers that could be immediately acted upon was available only to the world’s most sophisticated companies – massive organizations with huge IT budgets and teams. Now, these technologies are far more accessible and are allowing more businesses to shape the customer experience for the better in real-time.”

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