Online shopping has taken hold in the Czech Republic. This was mainly due to the time of the COVID when people often had to be satisfied with the possibility of shopping in e-shops.
Even those who refused to shop online until then are now proficient enough to distinguish a good e-shop from a bad one. Czechs put a premium on reviews, and if an online retailer doesn’t have contact details on its site, they will quickly abandon it.
In previous periods, e-shops have had a bumper harvest, with the volume of goods sold breaking records. This was mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic and related government measures, which significantly accelerated the digitization process and expanded the range of goods and services.
A Cofidis survey showed that almost one in two respondents started to buy more, more often, or different types of goods online during the pandemic than before. As a result, online sales will account for 17% of all Czech retail sales in 2021, up from 11.4 percent three years before the pandemic.
However, not every Czech shopper had a positive experience when shopping in e-shops. More than half of those surveyed had experienced problems, and about three out of ten people did not receive the goods they ordered.
A lot of information determines the purchase
As the survey results indicated, Czechs are, therefore, quite cautious and are mainly interested in information about online traders and the goods they buy.
Negative reviews of an e-shop would deter seven out of ten people from buying, three-fifths would leave the e-shop’s website even if there were negative reviews of a particular product, and roughly the same number would not buy from the retailer if they could not find contact details on its website.
The lack of information bothers the Czechs. One in two requires general information about their chosen e-shop when shopping online. Two-fifths would not buy even if there were insufficient information about the terms and conditions of purchase, and roughly the same number would not believe if there was a short product description.
Half of potential customers are also safely deterred from buying because the e-shop is in a foreign language or currency.
On the other hand, customers are squeamish about providing information about themselves. Almost half of the people refrained from completing orders when the trader asked them for sensitive information about themselves. A third of people are also bothered by having to fill in information multiple times.
The Czechs are interested in deferred payment.
The survey also asked Czechs about their preferred payment methods for ordered goods. Cash on delivery, which has been popular for many years, or payment on delivery, is declining. If e-shops no longer offered it, four-fifths of people would not be deterred from buying it.
At the same time, though, 43 percent of those surveyed consider payment in advance unacceptable when making a purchase. A third of people would not purchase if they did not have a choice of multiple payment options.