Retailers with seamless sign up and checkout processes are more impressionable, as majority of Australians find typing in details tedious

AUSTRALIA, 21 OCTOBER: GBG (AIM:GBG), the global experts in digital identity, helping businesses prevent fraud and meet complex compliance requirements, has released statistics revealing three in five Australians are shopping online more due to COVID-19 even though 50% of consumers still prefer shopping in-store. With this shift, customers are notably seeking seamless signup and checkout experiences that optimise on efficiency, convenience and accuracy.

The GBG Australian Shopping Experience survey reveals that Australians are influenced by their environment when choosing how to shop, as COVID-19 related factors propelled many consumers to increase their online shopping. Respondents claimed to shop online more when COVID-19 cases are high and they have safety concerns irrespective of whether lockdown restrictions are in place (24%) and lockdown restrictions are imposed (27%).

Even as states roll out plans to reopen, with NSW to open all retail businesses once vaccination targets are met and Victoria announcing new requirements for the industry, it is likely that online shopping trends will continue as 9% of respondents say they will shop online more for as long as there are active COVID-19 cases, regardless of whether the numbers are large or small.

Carol Chris, Regional General Manager Australia at GBG said, “The pandemic has propelled more Australians to opt for the online channel when they shop for groceries (34%), apparel (31%) as well as health and personal care (28%) products. Retailers in this category especially would be competing to get ahead in obtaining online mindshare and shopping cart conversions in order to maintain or grow their businesses.”

Retailers and brands have the opportunity to approach customer experience in new ways to resonate with their audience. The survey reveals a growing preference for auto-complete address functionality at checkout as consumers believe the option makes checkout faster (38%) and more accurate as there’s less chance of typos (30%). Additionally, consumers hold views that merchants with auto-complete functions at checkout are:

• More tech savvy (25%)
• More reliable (25%)
• Better at prioritising the customer experience (22%)
• Better at building customer trust (17%)

Interestingly, Australian shoppers find that the most painful parts of the online shopping checkout process are when there are too many fields to fill manually (34%), entering card payment details (33%), site malfunction losing all the details entered (31%), time it takes to load (25%) and authentication steps (22%).

“In the offline world, consumers today enjoy the convenience of contactless payment, where checking out a shopping basket takes just a few seconds to complete. In the online world, consumers are burdened with repetitive data entry as they sign up to buy from a new website and when they complete their purchase. It comes down to the basics that retailers who are able to provide an automated process, such as address auto-completion, to help consumers minimise the tediousness of repetitive manual entry, gain preference with consumers.” says Chris

“It is interesting to note that while it is basic functionality, consumers do remember using it. 63% of consumers reported that they had experienced using an address auto-complete function during cart checkout last year,” she concludes.

More key findings from the survey include:

• 50% of respondents hold themselves responsible for getting parcels sent to the right address, while 30% believe merchants are responsible as they need to have the right technology to ensure delivery addresses are accurate and 20% who believe the duty is with the courier/shipping company.
• 50% of shoppers claim to do the majority of their shopping in-store, while 24% mostly do their shopping online with home delivery and 19% use click and collect options as their main way of shopping.

About GBG:

GBG offers a range of solutions that help organisations quickly validate and verify the identity and location of their customers.Our market-leading technology, data and expertise help our customers improve digital access, deliver a seamless experience and establish trust so that they can transact quickly, safely and securely with their customers online.

Headquartered in the UK and with over 1,000 team members across 16 countries, we work with 20,000 customers in over 70 countries. Some of the world's best-known businesses rely on GBG to provide digital services and keep the economy moving, from US e-commerce giants to Asia's biggest banks and European household brands.

To find out more about how we help our clients establish trust with their customers, visit www.gbgplc.com/apac, follow us on Twitter @gbgplc or LinkedIn.

Research methodology:

PureProfile, on behalf of GBG, surveyed 1,004 Australian consumers in September, 2021, to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer shopping behaviour, and their views on auto-complete functions at checkout.