Customers buying online are annoyed by difficulty to shop

FRUSTRATED shoppers are abandoning online purchases because of endless requests for passwords and other hurdles - but are retailers taking notice?

Woman's Hands with Keyboard and Credit Card

FRUSTRATED online shoppers are abandoning potential purchases — and costing retailers dearly — because they consider the process too complex.

New findings by payment scheme giant Visa show, despite a jump in online consumer traffic, about one in three shoppers fail to complete a purchase on the grounds that it is too difficult.

New data in the Future of Payments, Everywhere Commerce report shows 92 per cent of Australians buy goods or services online but about one third (30 per cent) admit to walking away from a transaction, often for the simple fact they forgot their unique password.

Visa spokesman Greg Storey said consumers are purchasing everything from travel to electronic devices to movie tickets via the web but potential consumers are being lost because of the extra steps required to purchase online.

“The consumer is not only increasingly frustrated ... but they will abandon and give up and not try again,’’ he said.

“There are also a group of consumers who are increasingly wary because they have left their details once or twice but now they are leaving them in so many different places across the web that it’s uncomfortable.”

Process improvements needed .... ARA boss Russell Zimmerman.

Mr Storey said there was an opportunity for merchants to grow their online sales by having better purchasing processes in place.

Computers remain the pick of ways for consumers to shop online (90 per cent) but one in three shoppers aged between 18 and 29 opt for mobile devices.

The Australian Retailers Association’s chief executive Russell Zimmerman said merchants needed to improve their processes online to avoid losing potential sales.

“The retailer needs to ensure they have got very good and easy to understand systems,’’ he said.

“It’s vital within the industry that the check-out is simple and easy but extremely safe and secure.”

Comment below. What features of online shopping annoy you as a consumer?