[thelist] e-commerce

[aardvark]

> From: "deke " <web at master.gen.in.us>
> 
> > Surveys taken after last year's Christmas sales revealed that, on
> > average, 60% of all web shopping carts were abandoned before checkout.
> > Walmart doesn't have that problem! And some websites don't either. 
[...] 
> Let me tell you, if Walmart charged you $30 to store your merchandise
> for six weeks before you were allowed to have it, they'd have a lot of 
> abandoned sales in their brick-and-mortar stores, too.

this is an excellent point... you can't compare brick-n-mortar on a 
one-to-one basis with online stores...  when you go S-Mart, you 
know damn well the blue steel 12-gauge with a walnut stock it 
going to cost you $99, plus tax... that's it...

when you try to buy the same boom-stick at S-mart.com, you 
expect you'll have to also pay shipping...  so you go to S-
mart.com, add the item to your cart, and fill out just enough 
information to find out the tax and shipping... then you go to K-
Greens and do the same... then Rite-Mart, and then Wal-Aid...

all you are doing is comparison shopping... you're looking for the 
best price couple with the best shipping and tax, and that doesn't 
take 10 weeks to be manufactured and drop-shipped out of 
Singapore...

our own testing has shown that online shopping is as much online 
pricing as it is buying, probably moreso, in fact... this isn't bad...

> Come to think of it, they *do* have a lot of abandoned carts in 
[...]
> pharmacy, they were standing five deep in line, so I just left the
> cart there with the ten-pack of blank VCR tapes in it, and went 
> home empty-handed.

i also think it's worth noting that less abandoned carts in brick-n-
mortar is a factor of the investment to get there...

think about it... it's nothing more than time and a few clicks to add 
items to carts in 30 different online stores... it's a bit of a drive, gas, 
time, getting dressed, and wandering the aisles -- per store -- to 
add items to carts in 30 different real-world stores, and you can't 
quickly compare those prices...

i would argue that if someone researched it, the more time invested 
to get an item into a cart, the lower the abandon rates... and this 
counts for both online and real-world stores... anyone up to it?

> But do they count abandoned carts at Kmart?  I doubt it.

they do count stolen carts... not that i'd know...

> deke
[...]
> deke

so, can i call you 'deke'?