case study about online shopping

Free Resources

Ecommerce: 10 mini case studies of successful marketing for online shopping

This article was originally published in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter .

While ecommerce has been growing rapidly, it still only comprised a small percentage of overall retail sales. For example, in the U.S., on an adjusted basis, ecommerce accounted for 11.8% of all retail sales in the first quarter of 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau .

That was for Q1. Then in Q2, the number jumped to 16.1% – a 44.5% change from the same quarter a year ago. To put that number in perspective, Q2 2019 grew “only” 13.8% over Q2 2018.

What changed? The COVID-19 pandemic, of course. Even with ecommerce’s double-digit growth over the years, brick-and-mortar retail still had many advantages over ecommerce. Some products (like groceries) are hard to ship and easier and less expensive to buy in person. Brick-and-mortar retail has an experiential draw that ecommerce can’t match – from trying on a shirt to being wowed by an in-store (and Instagram-worthy) display. The ability to make a human connection and learn about a product or service.

Suddenly everything changed. That human connection became a detriment. And a no-touch version of goods and even services was preferable if not essential.

And that’s where we are in 2020 folks. A sad statement on human existence, yes. But as marketers, we must answer a practical question. How do we ensure our companies can continue to create value for customers in this changed world? Ecommerce can play a critical role. To help spark ideas for improving your company’s ecommerce efforts, here are specific examples from your peers in a wide range of industries.

Mini Case Study #1: Adding credibility generates a 46% increase in conversion for mattress company

A mid-sized furniture company selling organic latex mattresses engaged with MECLABS Institute to increase the overall number of mattress purchases (MECLABS is the parent organization of MarketingSherpa). It is one of only a few mattresses that is GreenGuard Gold certified.

The team conducted an experiment to determine which credibility approach would produce the highest rate of mattress purchases and ran an A/B split test.

The control landing page mentioned the certification, but it was de-emphasized.

Creative Sample #1: Control landing page for organic latex mattress

The treatment landing page added a section entitled “What is the GreenGuard Gold Seal?”

Creative Sample #2: Treatment landing page for organic latex mattress

The treatment landing page generated a 46% increase in conversion in the A/B test. The tangible value created by the additional copy helped the customer determine that the mattress was worth purchasing.

You can learn more about this experiment, and see other ecommerce experiments, in Optimizing Ecommerce Experiences: 25 valid ecommerce experiments to ideate your next A/B test from MarketingExperiments (MarketingSherpa’s sister publication).

Mini Case Study #2: Dunkin’ increases gift card sales 300% by quickly tapping into changing customer motivations

The way customers perceive your products and service can change over time. The COVID-19 pandemic is a great example. For most companies, if they just treated customers the same way they did before the pandemic, they would have overlooked customers’ changing motivations. And those changing motivations affect how potential customers perceive your offer.

Dunkin’ is an example of a company that moved swiftly to tap into new customer motivations. “As COVID-19 struck, Americans wanted to find ways to help and to show support for the frontline heroes. Dunkin’ wanted to give people a way to do so, even without being able to leave home,” said Justin Unger, Director, Strategic Partnerships, Dunkin'.

Created in just days, the DunkinCoffeeBreak.com ecommerce site gave customers a way to show appreciation by sending a virtual coffee break in the form of a Dunkin’ e-gift card. Dunkin’ donated $1 (up to $100,000) for every card purchased at this site to the Dunkin’ Joy in Childhood Foundation emergency funds, specifically for non-profits helping families affected by COVID-19.

“Since the initial launch, Dunkin’ has used the site for multiple moments that matter to people, such as Teacher Appreciation Week, National Nurses Week, and Mother’s Day,” Unger said.

The site is driving incremental digital gift card sales and has generated a 300% increase in year-over-year gift card sales for certain events.

“ I think ecommerce, especially in the gift card space, is a key [you can use to] unlock growth. We saw a tremendous lift in online gift card sales with the addition of DunkinCoffeeBreak.com without any cannibalization to our existing online gift card program. It allowed us to reach new guests and tap into the wealth of information and targeting in the digital world, which you just cannot do with plastic gift cards hanging on pegs ,” Unger said.

“Online and mobile shopping surged when social distancing was introduced…based on Blackhawk Network’s partners’ sales data, gift cards sales made directly from a restaurant’s or merchant’s website since mid-March are up 92% from last year,” said Brett Narlinger, Head of Global Commerce, Blackhawk Network , Dunkin’s gift card program partner.

Mini Case Study #3: Home décor company generates $734.40 in sales from “penny campaigns”

“Throughout my ecommerce career I have successfully implemented what I call ‘penny campaigns’ within numerous Google Ad accounts for a large number of different businesses,” said Patrick Connelly, co-founder, Stellar Villa .

Most businesses focus their ad spend on a select few products or services that account for the majority of the company’s revenue, he says. The idea with a penny campaign is to go deeper into your product set and offer very low bids for the ads.

“Penny campaigns can work with both text ads and Google Product Shopping ads, although I prefer Product ads,” Connelly said. Once you have the products added to a campaign, simply set a very low bid. While this can vary by industry, Connelly typically sets bids between five and twenty cents and uses broad match for a larger reach if targeting keywords.

For example, from May through July the wall art company ran a Shopping campaign with Product Listing Ads) for its “Nursery Wall Art” collection. The team set a maximum cost-per-click of $0.20 with a daily budget of $100. “We knew we wouldn't spend close to that, but I like to let Google know we're willing to pay for as many clicks at $0.20 or less as they can give us,” Connelly said.

Over the course of three months the ad produced 354 clicks at a cost of $60.18. The ad generated $743.40 in sales.

“The penny campaign strategy can be implemented on more platforms than just Google Ads. It also works great with Amazon Advertising,” Connelly said.

Mini Case Study #4: Vegan blog grows traffic to 50,000 monthly visits with more diverse SEO outreach strategy

Thrive Cuisine had more than 25,000 backlinks but was plateauing at about 30,000 monthly unique visits.

The team was building links and publishing content on the same schedule as before and wasn’t sure why they weren’t seeing more traffic and conversions.

George Pitchkhadze, CMO, Thrive Cuisine tried a new approach. Instead of focusing on getting more backlinks he decided the site need a bigger variety of backlinks. Pitchkhadze stopped outreach efforts that were targeting the same kind of website over and over again and spent two months creating a completely new link-building and outreach strategy. This time, the team specifically focused on websites in adjacent niches instead of the vegan blog’s own niche. They started the outreach effort in May after spending two months creating more diverse content to link back to.

The new out outreach targeting more diverse websites increased the number of referring domains by more than 50%. This resulted in traffic going from about 30,000 to more than 50,000 monthly visits from unique visitors and increased “traffic value” by more than $10,000.

“If you’re looking to get ecommerce traffic, focus on backlink variety and quality; not only quantity. This will massively improve your results. Where possible, create new content on your own website to really showcase your own expertise across diverse subjects,” Pitchkhadze said.

Mini Case Study #5: Footwear store increases conversion 21.5% with clearer communication on website

KURU Footwear places a high emphasis on customer service and ease of experience by offering free shipping, free exchanges, and free returns. While this messaging did exist on the footwear brand’s website in various places, the team launched a test exploring four options that inserted those value messages higher in the customer experience.

Creative Sample #3: Control homepage for footwear brand

The top-performing treatment had a black bar with simple white text at the top of nearly all pages outside of the checkout funnel. It increased conversion 21.5%.

Creative Sample #4: Top-performing treatment for footwear website

Other treatments that included the customer service message but added in a message to reassure customers that Kuru was open and operating during COVID-19 did not perform as well. “We found simplicity performed best,” said Kelly Stanze, Manager, Marketing & Communications, Kuru.

Creative Sample #5: Lower-performing treatment for footwear website

“Making sure potential new customers know just how much we prioritize customer satisfaction can be difficult. While the proof is in the shoes, we're constantly seeking ways to elevate just how passionate about our customers we are as a company. This was just one step in that never-ending effort,” Stanze said.

Mini Case Study #6: Facebook Live show quadruples online orders for gourmet deli and marketplace

Big Bottom Market is a gourmet deli and marketplace in the heart of Sonoma Wine Country. In addition to its retail presence, the team also manages an Etsy Shop where they sell Big Bottom Market-branded products and the work of local artisans.

“We've been in the e-commerce game since 2016 when we were designated one of Oprah's Favorite Things and had to use the Amazon platform for national sales,” said Michael Volpatt, owner, Big Bottom Market. “From orders and shipping to returns and everything in between, Amazon was a great partner at the time. That changed when our sales volume slowed down so we crunched the numbers and realized that Etsy would be a better partner as we ramped up our growing product line with items that we created or partnered with someone to create for us…My point in this is that being flexible at all points in your e-commerce journey is important.”

Volpatt would be forced to be flexible once again. On March 18 th , the county of Sonoma locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the in-person retail market closed. All of a sudden, ecommerce became a much more important component of Big Bottom Market’s sales

“As a chef and cookbook author, I decided to continue engaging with our customers and launched a Facebook Live cooking show called Cooking In Place,” Volpatt said.

Volpatt cooked and showcased local wines for fans along with other products that the market sells, encouraging viewers to buy them online.

In addition, after each show he posted the video replay across all of its social media channels and shared recipes and details about the food he cooked and wine he tasted on the show.” I would broadcast on Facebook Live and save the video feed. Then I would repost a link to the video on my personal page, on Instagram TV, and then also on YouTube,” he said.

Creative Sample #6: Facebook Live cooking show from gourmet deli and marketplace

In addition to customer engagement and increasing social media followers, the goal was to drive ecommerce sales as a way to augment lost revenue from in-store foot traffic.

“We used to see three to five orders per month in our Etsy shop. In the first week of doing the show we saw three to five per week and that increased to five to ten orders per week. To some, those numbers may seem low, but for a small business located in a tourist town, these numbers were great. Our sales ended up paying for our monthly fixed expenses, which was very helpful for a business that relies on foot traffic,” Volpatt said.

Mini Case Study #7: Retail company increases revenue 311% with website redesign

The Barbecues Galore website had a low conversion rate due to technical, usability and value communication issues. For example, when a product was added in different product categories the URL slug of the product itself would change. “This presented us with issues we needed to address immediately, as a product that constantly changes in URL is not SEO friendly and would present with unwanted 301 redirects and in some cases 404s,” said Andres Aguero, Senior SEO Specialist, Barbecues Galore.

The new site fixed those technical issues, and also did a better job of communicating value to the customer. For example, the product listing page on the old website had very few pictures and did not prominently feature reviews.

Creative sample #7: Previous product listing page on retailer’s original website

“We ended up figuring out that when people are making a large purchase online they want to feel safe and secure that their money is being well spent,” Aguero said.

The team invested in adding additional photos to the product listing and reached out to previous customers from both the online and brick-and-mortar locations to request a product review.

Creative sample #8: Product listing page on retailer’s new website

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the team had to push the live date of the website to April 2020. “This was a big risk at the time as we were at the peak of COVID-19 and all of our brick-and-mortar locations had been closed. Our only source of income at that time was our online revenue,” Aguero said.

The redesign paid off. Revenue from April to August 2020 increased 311% compared to the same time frame in the previous year and revenue from organic traffic increased 172%. (Much of that increase likely has to do with the site improvements, however this reporter questions if increased demand for backyard products due to COVID-19 lockdowns may have also played a role in the revenue increase.)

“My advice for other marketers would be to focus on your website’s existing traffic first before you make any other investments. Our PPC specialist was spending a crazy amount of money on a monthly basis only to see low conversion rates. If your conversion rate is low then try to figure out why. Take a look at your competitors and see what they are doing. After you’ve done that, then you can start making investments into PPC or SEO,” Aguero advised.

Mini Case Study #8: 3D models platform increases clickthrough 12% with A/B testing

Sketchfab operate a 3D content marketplace where people can buy and sell 3D models. It features some of these designs on its landing pages. The team decided to test the effect of different background designs for the header block, which contains a search bar and other navigation menus.

The background of the landing pages consisted of colorful, contrasted 3D models of animals and characters.

Creative Sample #9: Control landing page for 3D content models platform

The team tested less prominent backgrounds to provide more emphasis to the search bar and rest of the page’s user interface. Here is the highest-performing treatment, which produced a 5.3% increase in page engagement and 12.4% increase in clickthrough rates when compared to the original version.

Creative Sample #10: Treatment landing page for 3D content models platform

“Backgrounds [with] a low contrast image that blends with the rest of the page tend to perform much better than vivid, more contrasted ones. In our case, rather than wowing customers with a spectacular image or video, having a more modest graphic allowed them to take action and flow to other internal pages,” said Guillermo Sainz, Digital Marketing, Sketchfab.

Mini Case Study #9: Automating organic Pinterest postings generates $56,000 per month for women’s clothing store

This next example may not work for every company, but it was successful for a niche brand with a very visual product.

“We used to post manually on Pinterest every now and then and didn't attract any customers/visitors to our ecommerce portal. A few months ago, we installed a Shopify plugin to automatically push product images to Pinterest,” said Akram Tariq Khan, CTO, YourLibaas .

Creative Sample #11: Automated Pinterest post from women’s clothing store

“The results were unexpected,” Khan said.

The women’s clothing store now has about 930,000 monthly Pinterest viewers with 26,000 followers and average monthly sales directly attributable to Pinterest of $56,000 within the last quarter without spending a penny on Pinterest.

YourLibaas is based in India and offers international shipping. Most of the Pinterest customers are located internationally, primarily within the US, UK and Canada with a sizeable number in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

“The majority of our international orders are customers who discovered our brand through Pinterest. We have a significant presence on Instagram and Facebook too, but the user base at these platforms is primarily located domestically within India,” Khan said.

Mini Case Study #10: Female wellness product overcomes ad ban with SEO-focused content creation and attracts 9,248 organic visitors in latest month

As digital advertising platforms work to improve their image by banning industries and products deemed harmful, some less nefarious brands are getting caught as well.

For example, Chiavaye sells an all-natural, vegan personal moisturizer. Kaylyn Easton started the company because she has endometriosis.

The company was making approximately $14,000 per month in revenue by promoting the product with paid ads. However, about two years ago its ad account was shut down for “adult content.”

“Paid ads was a strategy that worked well for us until it didn’t. Meaning, the moment we got shut down, we lost more than 90% of our monthly revenue,” said Kaylyn Easton, CEO & Founder, Chiavaye.

At the time, organic traffic from Google was only about 20 visitors per month, and 98% of its was branded searches like “Chiavaye lube.”

The company decided to pursue a strategy of SEO-focused content creation. “We wanted to implement a strategy that would build our brand long-term so that after we turn off the investment, it could still bring in value. If we were to stop writing SEO articles today, we’d still get the benefits from what we’ve done for years to come. Versus, if we turn off a paid ads strategy, we immediately see a huge negative impact,” Easton said.

The primary focus of the content is not the promotion of the product, but instead helping the target audience overcome key pain points.

“We've been creating four SEO-focused pieces of content per month targeting endometriosis-related queries. Things like ‘endometriosis diet grocery list.’ We found that women with endo are craving any type of information to help them. And, if the info is good, they'll trust that person – and even buy their products,” said Joey Randazzo, Founder and CEO, Portland SEO Growth .

After 18 months of creating four pieces of content per month, the site went from about 20 visitors per month to, in the most recent month, 9,248 organic visitors.

Every piece of content has two CTAs (calls to action). The first is to buy the product. The second CTA is for a free e-book, which is generating 250 downloads per month – building the email list.

Creative Sample #12: Email signup form for e-book from female wellness product company

“We discovered that [competitors] have salesy email campaigns – every other email is a 30% off coupon. [Chiavaye's] is designed around adding value more than anything,” Randazzo said.

The team discovered the top burning questions the target audience is asking around endometriosis, like “is dairy okay to eat with endo?” Easton answers these questions in text and video in a clear, straightforward way. The email body is succinct in answering the question linking to articles on the company’s website for more information.

“Figure out who your target audience is and then create content that adds value to them and their lives. We’ve discovered that 95% of the content we create should be adding value to the reader. The final 5% should pitch us as a solution. It builds trust and entices them to opt in for our free e-book, which consequently builds a super valuable email list for us,” Easton said.

Related resources

Research-based Ecommerce Swipe File

Ecommerce Marketing Research: To be truly successful, you must step out of the ecommerce bubble

Ecommerce Research Chart: What makes customers more likely to buy online?

Improve Your Marketing

Join our thousands of weekly case study readers.

Enter your email below to receive MarketingSherpa news, updates, and promotions:

Note: Already a subscriber? Want to add a subscription? Click Here to Manage Subscriptions

Get Better Business Results With a Skillfully Applied Customer-first Marketing Strategy

The customer-first approach of MarketingSherpa’s agency services can help you build the most effective strategy to serve customers and improve results, and then implement it across every customer touchpoint.

Get headlines, value prop, competitive analysis, and more.

Marketer Vs Machine

Marketer Vs Machine: We need to train the marketer to train the machine.

Free Marketing Course

Become a Marketer-Philosopher: Create and optimize high-converting webpages (with this free online marketing course)

Project and Ideas Pitch Template

A free template to help you win approval for your proposed projects and campaigns

Six Quick CTA checklists

These CTA checklists are specifically designed for your team — something practical to hold up against your CTAs to help the time-pressed marketer quickly consider the customer psychology of your “asks” and how you can improve them.

Infographic: How to Create a Model of Your Customer’s Mind

You need a repeatable methodology focused on building your organization’s customer wisdom throughout your campaigns and websites. This infographic can get you started.

Infographic: 21 Psychological Elements that Power Effective Web Design

To build an effective page from scratch, you need to begin with the psychology of your customer. This infographic can get you started.

Receive the latest case studies and data on email, lead gen, and social media along with MarketingSherpa updates and promotions.

Your Email Account
Customer Service Q&A
Search Library
Content Directory:

Questions? Contact Customer Service at [email protected]

The views and opinions expressed in the articles of this website are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily reflect in any way the views of MarketingSherpa, its affiliates, or its employees.

The 24 Best eCommerce Retail Case Studies Worth Reading

In the fast-paced world of retail and eCommerce, staying ahead of the game is not just a goal; it’s the lifeline of our industry. For seasoned retail executives, inspiration often comes from the experiences and successes of industry giants who paved the way with their innovative thinking and managed to thrive through thick and thin. That’s why we’re excited to bring you an exclusive collection of the 30 best eCommerce case studies meticulously curated to provide you with a wealth of insights and ideas to fuel your strategies. These case studies are more than just success stories; they are beacons of guidance for retail professionals navigating the ever-changing landscape of our industry.

In this article, we delve deep into the journeys of retail giants who have not only weathered the storms of disruption but have emerged as trailblazers in eCommerce. From adapting to shifting consumer behaviors to mastering the art of online engagement, this compilation offers a treasure trove of wisdom for the modern retail executive.

Table of Contents

> Case studies for grocery/wholesale eCommerce retailers
> Case studies for fashion eCommerce retailers
> Case Studies for home & furniture eCommerce retailers
> Case Studies for health & beauty eCommerce retailers
> Case studies for electronics and tools eCommerce retailers
> Case Studies for toys and leisure eCommerce retailers

Case studies for grocery/wholesale eCommerce retailers

Retail case study #1: tesco .

Industry : Grocery stores

Why worth reading:

Historical evolution: Understanding Tesco’s rise from a group of market stalls to a retail giant provides valuable lessons on growth and adaptation to market changes.
Customer service focus: Tesco’s long-term emphasis on customer service, which is consistent across their physical and online platforms, showcases the importance of customer-centric strategies.
Innovation in eCommerce: The case study covers Tesco’s pioneering of the world’s first virtual grocery store in South Korea, a testament to its innovative approach to digital retailing.
Crisis management: Insights into how Tesco handled the Horse Meat Scandal, including efforts to tighten its supply chain, contributing to its logistical success.
Financial integrity: The study discusses the Accounting Scandal, offering a sobering look at financial transparency and the repercussions of financial misreporting.

Read the full Tesco case study here .

Retail case study #2: Walmart

Industry : Discount department and grocery stores

Data-driven success: The case study provides a wealth of data, showcasing Walmart’s remarkable achievements. With an annual revenue of almost $570 billion, a global presence in 24 countries, and a customer base exceeding 230 million weekly, it’s a testament to the effectiveness of their strategies.
Marketing strategies: The case study delves deep into Walmart’s marketing strategies. It highlights their focus on catering to low to middle-class demographics, the introduction of the Walmart Rewards loyalty program, and their commitment to environmental sustainability, all of which have contributed to their success.
eCommerce transformation: As eCommerce continues to reshape the retail landscape, this case study details how Walmart shifted significantly towards omnichannel retail. Readers can learn about their innovative technologies and approaches, such as personalized shopping experiences and augmented reality, that have helped them adapt to changing consumer behavior.
Supply chain innovation: Walmart’s proficiency in supply chain management is a crucial takeaway for retail executives. Their decentralized distribution center model , in-house deliveries, and data-driven optimization exemplify the importance of efficient logistics in maintaining a competitive edge.

Read the full Walmart case study here .

Retail case study #3: Sainsbury’s

Industry : Grocery stores

Omnichannel success amidst pandemic challenges: With the fastest growth in online shopping among major retailers, the study illustrates how Sainsbury’s adapted and thrived during unprecedented times.
Dynamic brand positioning: The analysis delves into Sainsbury’s strategic shift in brand positioning, demonstrating a keen responsiveness to changing consumer preferences. This shift showcases the brand’s agility in aligning with contemporary health-conscious consumer trends, supported by relevant data and market insights.
Supply chain and quality assurance: The study highlights Sainsbury’s commitment to a stellar supply chain, emphasizing the correlation between high product quality, ethical sourcing, and customer loyalty. With data-backed insights into the extensive distribution network and sourcing standards, retail executives can glean valuable lessons in maintaining a competitive edge through a robust supply chain.
Innovative technological integration: Sainsbury’s implementation of cutting-edge technologies, such as Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” and Pay@Browse, demonstrates a commitment to providing customers with a seamless and convenient shopping experience.
Diversification beyond grocery: The case study unveils Sainsbury’s strategic partnerships with companies like Amazon, Carluccio’s, Itsu, Leon, and Wasabi, showcasing the brand’s versatility beyond traditional grocery retail.

Read the full Sainsbury’s case study here .

Retail case study #4: Ocado

From startup to industry leader: The Ocado case study presents a remarkable journey from a three-employee startup in 2000 to becoming the UK’s largest online grocery platform.
Omnichannel excellence: The study emphasizes Ocado’s success in implementing an omnichannel approach, particularly its early adoption of smartphone technology for customer engagement.
Operational efficiency: From automated warehouses with machine learning-driven robots to digital twins for simulating order selection and delivery processes, the data-rich content sheds light on how technology can be leveraged for operational efficiency.
Navigating challenges through innovation: Ocado’s strategic response to challenges, particularly its shift from primarily a grocery delivery service to a technology-driven company, showcases the power of innovative thinking. The case study details how Ocado tackled complexities associated with grocery deliveries and embraced technology partnerships to stay ahead.
Strategic partnerships: The study sheds light on Ocado’s strategic partnerships with grocery chains and companies like CitrusAd for advertising opportunities on its platform.

Read the full Ocado case study here .

Retail case study #5: Lidl

Industry : Discount supermarkets

Longevity and evolution: The article provides a detailed overview of Lidl’s origins and evolution, offering insights into how the brand transformed from a local fruit wholesaler to a global retail powerhouse. Understanding this journey can inspire retail executives to explore innovative strategies in their own companies.
Global success: Retail executives can draw lessons from Lidl’s international expansion strategy, identifying key factors that contributed to its success and applying similar principles to their global ventures.
Awards and recognitions: The numerous awards and accomplishments earned by Lidl underscore the effectiveness of its marketing strategy. Marketers and eCommerce professionals can learn from Lidl’s approach to quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction.
Comprehensive marketing components: The article breaks down Lidl’s marketing strategy into key components, such as pricing strategy, product diversification, and target audience focus. Readers can analyze these components and consider incorporating similar holistic approaches in their businesses to achieve well-rounded success.
Omnichannel transformation: The discussion on Lidl’s transformation to an omnichannel strategy is particularly relevant in the current digital age. This information can guide executives in adopting and optimizing similar omnichannel strategies to enhance customer experiences and drive sales.

Read the full Lidl case study here .

Retail case study #6: ALDI

Industry : FMCG

Omnichannel approach: Aldi’s growth is attributed to a robust omnichannel strategy that seamlessly integrates online and offline channels. The case study delves into how Aldi effectively implemented services that can overcome the intricacies of a successful omnichannel approach in today’s dynamic retail landscape.
Target market positioning: Aldi’s strategic positioning as the most cost-effective retail store for the middle-income group is explored in detail. The case study elucidates how Aldi’s pricing strategy, emphasizing the lowest possible prices and no-frills discounts, resonates with a wide audience.
Transparency: Aldi’s commitment to transparency in its supply chain is a distinctive feature discussed in the case study. For retail executives, understanding the importance of transparent supply chain practices and their impact on brand perception is crucial in building consumer trust.
Differentiation: Aldi’s successful “Good Different” brand positioning, which communicates that low prices result from conscientious business practices, is a key focus of the case study. Effective differentiation through brand messaging contributes to customer trust and loyalty, especially when combined with ethical business practices.
CSR Initiatives: The case study highlights Aldi’s emphasis on social responsibility to meet the expectations of millennial and Gen-Z shoppers. By consistently communicating its CSR efforts, such as sustainable sourcing of products, Aldi creates a positive brand image that resonates with socially conscious consumers and builds brand reputation.

Read the full Aldi case study here .

Retail case study #7: ASDA

Industry : Supermarket chain

Omnichannel implementation: The case study details how ASDA seamlessly integrates physical and virtual channels, offering customers a diverse shopping experience through in-store, digital checkouts, Click & Collect services, and a dedicated mobile app.
Market segmentation strategies: The incorporation of partnerships with young British designers and influencer collaborations, coupled with socially progressive messaging, reflects a strategic shift that can inspire marketers looking to revitalize product lines.
Crisis management and ethical branding: The study highlights ASDA’s strong response to the COVID-19 crisis, with ASDA’s actions showcasing a combination of crisis management and ethical business practices. This section provides valuable insights for executives seeking to align their brand with social responsibility during challenging times.
Product and format diversification: ASDA’s product categories extend beyond groceries, including clothing, home goods, mobile products, and even insurance. The case study explores how ASDA continues to explore opportunities for cross-promotion and integration.
Website analysis and improvement recommendations: The detailed analysis of ASDA’s eCommerce website provides actionable insights for professionals in the online retail space. This section is particularly beneficial for eCommerce professionals aiming to enhance user experience and design.

Read the full ASDA case study here .

Case studies for fashion eCommerce retailers

Retail case study #8: Farfetch

Industry : Fashion retail

Effective SEO strategies: The Farfetch case study offers a detailed analysis of the company’s search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, revealing how it attracted over 4 million monthly visitors. The data presented underscores the importance of patient and dedicated SEO efforts, emphasizing the significance of detailed page structuring, optimized content, and strategic backlinking.
Paid search advertising wisdom and cost considerations: The study delves into Farfetch’s paid search advertising approach, shedding light on its intelligent optimization tools and the nuances of running localized advertisements. Moreover, it discusses the higher cost of visitor acquisition through paid search compared to organic methods, providing valuable insights for marketers navigating the paid advertising landscape.
Innovative LinkedIn advertising for talent acquisition: Farfetch’s unique use of LinkedIn advertising to attract talent is a standout feature of the case study and highlights the significance of proactive recruitment efforts and employer branding through social media channels.
Strategic use of social media platforms: Exploring the brand’s highly consistent organic marketing across various social media channels, with a focus on visual content, highlights Farfetch’s innovative use of Instagram’s IGTV to promote luxury brands. The emphasis on social media engagement numbers serves as a testament to the effectiveness of visual content in the eCommerce and fashion sectors.
Website design and conversion optimization insights: A significant portion of the case study is dedicated to analyzing Farfetch’s eCommerce website, providing valuable insights for professionals aiming to enhance their online platforms. By identifying strengths and areas for improvement in the website’s design, marketers, and eCommerce professionals can draw actionable insights for their platforms.

Read the full Farfetch case study here .

Retail case study #9: ASOS

Industry : Fashion eCommerce retail

Mobile shopping success: eCommerce executives can draw inspiration from ASOS’s commitment to enhancing the mobile shopping experience, including features such as notifications for sale items and easy payment methods using smartphone cameras.
Customer-centric mentality: ASOS emphasizes the importance of engaging customers on a personal level, gathering feedback through surveys, and using data for continuous improvement. This approach has contributed to the brand’s strong base of loyal customers.
Inclusive marketing: ASOS’s adoption of an ‘all-inclusive approach’ by embracing genderless fashion and featuring ‘real’ people as models reflects an understanding of evolving consumer preferences. Marketers can learn from ASOS’s bold approach to inclusivity, adapting their strategies to align with the latest trends and values embraced by their target audience.
Investment in technology and innovation: The case study provides data on ASOS’s substantial investment in technology, including visual search, voice search, and artificial intelligence (AI). eCommerce professionals can gain insights into staying at the forefront of innovation by partnering with technology startups.
Efficient global presence: ASOS’s success in offering a wide range of brands with same and next-day shipping globally is attributed to its strategic investment in technology for warehouse automation. This highlights the importance of operational efficiency through technology, ensuring a seamless customer experience and reduced warehouse costs.

Read the full ASOS case study here .

Retail case study #10: Tommy Hilfiger

Industry : High-end fashion retail

Worldwide brand awareness: The data presented highlights Tommy Hilfiger’s remarkable journey from a men’s clothing line in 1985 to a global lifestyle brand with 2,000 stores in 100 countries, generating $4.7 billion in revenue in 2021. This strategic evolution, exemplified by awards and recognitions, showcases the brand’s adaptability and enduring relevance in the ever-changing fashion landscape.
Adaptation and flexibility to changing market trends: The discussion on how the brand navigates changing trends and overcame market saturation, particularly in the US, provides practical insights for professionals seeking to navigate the challenges of evolving consumer preferences.
Successful omnichannel marketing: Tommy Hilfiger’s success is attributed to a brand-focused, digitally-led approach. The analysis of the brand’s omnichannel marketing strategy serves as a map for effective promotion and engagement across various channels.
Decision-making and customer engagement: The case study emphasizes the brand’s commitment to data-driven decision-making with insights into customer behavior, leveraging data for effective customer engagement.

Read the full Tommy Hilfiger case study here .

Retail case study #11: Gap

Overcoming challenges: The case study provides a comprehensive look at Gap Inc.’s financial performance, and growth despite the challenges. These insights can offer valuable takeaways into effective financial management and strategies for sustained success.
Strong branding: Gap’s journey from a single store to a global fashion retailer reveals the importance of strategic brand positioning. Understanding how Gap targeted different market segments with unique brand identities, can inspire retail executives looking to diversify and expand their brand portfolios.
Omnichannel adaptation: The case study delves into Gap’s omnichannel strategy, illustrating how the company seamlessly integrates online and offline experiences.
Unique use of technology: By exploring the technologies Gap employs, such as Optimizely and New Relic, retail executives can learn about cutting-edge tools for A/B testing, personalization, and real-time user experience monitoring. This insight is crucial for staying competitive in the digital retail landscape.
Inspiring solutions: The case study highlights challenges faced by Gap, including logistical, technological, financial, and human resource challenges.

Read the full Gap case study here .

Retail case study #12: Superdry

Success story: The case study emphasizes SUPERDRY’s successful transition to an omnichannel retail strategy, with in-depth insights into their adaptation to online platforms and the integration of technologies like the Fynd app.
Mobile-first and social-first strategies: As mobile internet usage continues to rise, understanding how SUPERDRY leverages videos and social media to engage customers can offer valuable takeaways for optimizing digital strategies.
Sustainable fashion focus: Executives looking to appeal to environmentally conscious consumers can gain insights into how SUPERDRY navigated the shift towards sustainable practices and became a leader in eco-friendly fashion.
Data-driven marketing strategies: The case study delves into SUPERDRY’s social media marketing strategies, showcasing how the company uses targeted campaigns, influencers, and seasonal keywords.
Global market understanding: By exploring SUPERDRY’s experience in the Chinese market and its decision to exit when faced with challenges, the case study offers valuable insights into global market dynamics.

Read the full SUPERDRY case study here .

Retail case study #13: New Look

Industry : Fast-fashion retail

Strategic pivots for profitability: A decade of revenue contraction led New Look to adopt transformative measures, from restructuring credits to withdrawing from non-profitable markets.
Omnichannel strategy: Marketers and eCommerce professionals can study New Look’s journey, understanding how the integration of physical stores and online platforms enhances customer experience, reduces costs, and improves profitability.
Social media mastery: The case study underscores the pivotal role of social media in engaging audiences, showcasing how New Look leverages user-generated content to build brand loyalty and maintain a positive brand perception.
Effective partnerships for growth: New Look strategically partners with major eCommerce platforms like eBay & Next to expand its brand presence, and tap into new audiences and markets.

Read the full New Look case study here .

Retail case study #14: Zara

Rapid international expansion through innovative strategies: Zara’s unique approach to continuous innovation and quick adaptation to fashion trends fueled its global success. Marketers can learn how to build brand narratives that resonate across diverse markets, and eCommerce professionals can glean strategies for seamless international expansion.
Revolutionary eCommerce tactics: The case study provides a deep dive into Zara’s eCommerce strategy, emphasizing the importance of agility and responsiveness. The brand can be a bright example of implementing supply chain strategies for a swift market adapting to rapid fashion cycles.
Visionary leadership: Amancio Ortega’s low-profile persona and visionary leadership style are explored in the case study, aiding retail executives to learn about leadership strategies that prioritize customer-centric business models.
Omnichannel marketing and integrated stock management: Zara’s successful integration of automated marketing and stock management systems is a focal point in the case study. With insights into implementing integrated stock management systems to meet the demands of both online and offline channels, Zara can inspire professionals to improve their operations.
Co-creation with the masses: Zara’s innovative use of customer feedback as a driving force for fashion trends is a key takeaway. Marketers can learn about the power of customer co-creation in shaping brand identity, and eCommerce professionals can implement similar models for product launches and updates.

Read the full Zara case study here .

Case Studies for home & furniture eCommerce retailers

Retail case study #15: john lewis.

Industry : Homeware and clothing retail

Omnichannel perspective: The data-driven approach, especially in tracking orders and customer behavior, serves as a blueprint for any retail business aiming to enhance its omnichannel experience.
Strategic growth factors: This case study offers concrete data on the strategies that contributed to the company’s sustained success, inspiring similar endeavors.
Innovative customer engagement: John Lewis’s take on customer engagement showcases the brand’s agility and responsiveness to evolving consumer needs, supported by data on the effectiveness of these initiatives.
eCommerce best practices and pitfalls: The analysis of John Lewis’s eCommerce website provides a data-backed evaluation of what works and what could be improved. The critique is grounded in data, making it a valuable resource for those looking to optimize their online platforms.

Read the full John Lewis case study here .

Retail case study #16: Argos

Industry : Homeware catalog retail

Adaptation to the changing retail landscape: Argos’s journey from a catalog retailer to a retail giant demonstrates its ability to successfully adapt to the evolving retail landscape.
Omnichannel success story: The case study provides a detailed analysis of Argos’s omnichannel strategy, showcasing how the company effectively integrated online and offline channels to achieve a seamless shopping experience across multiple touchpoints.
Market share and financial performance: The inclusion of data on Argos’s market share and financial performance offers retail executives concrete metrics to evaluate the success of the marketing strategy. Understanding how Argos maintained a robust market share despite challenges provides actionable insights.
Technological advancements: The case study delves into the technologies employed by Argos, such as Adobe Marketing Cloud, New Relic, and ForeSee.
Overcoming obstacles: By examining the challenges faced by Argos, including logistical, technological, financial, and human resources challenges, retail executives can gain a realistic understanding of potential obstacles in implementing omnichannel strategies.

Read the full Argos case study here .

Retail case study #17: IKEA

Industry : Home & furniture retail

Data-driven evolution: This detailed case study offers a data-rich narrative, illuminating the brand’s evolution into a leader in omnichannel retail.
Pandemic response: This exploration delves into the integration of eCommerce strategies, online expansions, and the balance between physical and digital customer experiences.
Advanced mobile apps and AR integration: A deep dive into IKEA’s innovative applications, notably the AR app “IKEA Place,” showcases how the brand leverages technology for a seamless customer experience.
Democratic design approach: The study meticulously breaks down IKEA’s success factors, emphasizing the brand’s holistic approach through the lens of “Democratic Design.”
DIY mentality and demographic targeting: A detailed analysis of how IKEA’s affordability is intertwined with a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mentality. The case study explores how IKEA strategically tapped into a shift in consumer behavior, particularly among younger demographics, influencing not only purchasing patterns but also reshaping industry norms.

Read the full IKEA case study here .

Retail case study #18: Marks & Spencer

Industry : Clothing and home products retail

Valuable lessons in eCommerce: The Marks & Spencer eCommerce case study offers a profound exploration of the brand’s journey from a latecomer to the online scene to a digital-first retailer.
Real-world application of effective solutions: By diving into the history of Marks & Spencer, the case study provides tangible examples of how a retail giant faced setbacks and strategically pivoted to revitalize its eCommerce platform.
Data-driven analysis of eCommerce failures: The case study meticulously analyzes the pitfalls Marks & Spencer encountered during its eCommerce journey, offering a data-driven examination of the repercussions of a poorly executed website relaunch.
Multichannel customer experience: Marks & Spencer’s shift towards a multichannel customer experience is dissected in the case study, emphasizing the significance of a seamless user journey for increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Embracing technology: Exploring Marks & Spencer’s technological innovations, such as the introduction of an intelligent virtual assistant can enhance the customer shopping journey, foster engagement, and contribute to revenue growth.

Read the full Marks & Spencer case study here .

Retail case study #19: Macy’s

Industry : Clothing and homeware retail

Resilience and adaptability: The case study showcases Macy’s ability to navigate and triumph over obstacles, especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite hardships, Macy’s not only survived but thrived, achieving $24.4 billion in net sales for 2022.
Omnichannel innovation: Macy’s successful transition to omnichannel retailing is a standout feature. The case study delves into Macy’s implementation of a seamless omnichannel strategy, emphasizing the integration of physical and digital retail channels.
Private label strategy: The introduction of new private brands and the emphasis on increasing the contribution of private brands to sales by 2025 provides a strategic lesson. Retailers can learn from Macy’s approach to enhancing control over production and distribution by investing in private brands, ultimately aiming for a more significant share of profits.
Groundbreaking retail media strategy: Macy’s innovative approach to retail media and digital marketing is another compelling aspect. For marketers, this presents a case study on how to leverage proprietary shopper data for effective advertising, including entry into connected TV (CTV).
Community engagement and social responsibility: The case study explores Macy’s “Mission Every One” initiative, highlighting its commitment to corporate citizenship and societal impact, integrating values into business strategies.

Read the full Macy’s case study here .

Case Studies for health & beauty eCommerce retailers

Retail case study #20: the body shop .

Industry : Beauty, health, and cosmetics

Activism and ethical values: The Body Shop has pioneered promoting eco-friendly, sustainable, and cruelty-free products. The brand’s mission is to empower women and girls worldwide to be their best, natural selves. This strong ethical foundation has been integral to its identity.
Recycling, community fair trade, and sustainability: The Body Shop initiated a recycling program early on, which turned into a pioneering strategy. It collaborates with organizations to create sustainable solutions for recycling, such as the Community Trade recycled plastic initiative in partnership with Plastics for Change.
Product diversity: The Body Shop’s target demographic primarily focuses on women, but it has expanded some product lines to include men. Its products include skincare, hair and body treatments, makeup, and fragrances for both men and women.
Omnichannel strategy, technology, and eCommerce best practices: The Body Shop has embraced an omnichannel approach that incorporates personalization, customer data and analytics, and loyalty programs. The Body Shop utilizes technology, including ContactPigeon, for omnichannel customer engagement, personalization, and data-driven decision-making.

Read the full The Body Shop case study here .

Retail case study #21: Boots

Industry : Pharmacy retail

Long-term success: Boots’ rich history serves as a testament to the effectiveness of the brand’s strategies over time, offering valuable insights into building a brand that withstands the test of time.
Strategic omnichannel approach: The Boots case study provides a deep dive into the marketing strategy that propelled the brand to success, with valuable insights into crafting effective omnichannel growth.
Impactful loyalty program: Marketers can glean insights into designing loyalty programs that resonate with customers, fostering brand allegiance.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a pillar: The case study sheds light on how Boots addresses critical issues like youth unemployment and climate change, showcasing how a socially responsible approach can positively impact brand perception.
Adaptive strategies during crises: Boots’ proactive role during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering vaccination services and supporting the National Health Service (NHS), demonstrates the brand’s agility during crises.

Read the full Boots case study here .

Retail case study #22: Sephora

Industry : Cosmetics

Authentic customer experience-focused mentality: Backed by an impressive array of data, the case study meticulously outlines how Sephora transforms its in-store spaces into digital playgrounds, leveraging mobile technologies, screens, and augmented reality to enhance the customer shopping experience.
Exceptional omnichannel business plan: The early adoption of an omnichannel strategy has been pivotal to Sephora’s ascendancy. The case study delves into the mobile app’s central role, acting as a comprehensive beauty hub with data-driven insights that drive the success of groundbreaking technologies.
Omnichannel company culture: The case study illuminates this by detailing how this amalgamation allows a holistic view of the customer journey, blurring the lines between online and in-store interactions. This unique approach positions Sephora as a global leader in turning omnichannel thinking into a robust business strategy.
Turning data into growth: Sephora’s adept utilization of mobile technologies to harness customer insights is a beacon for retailers in an era where data reigns supreme. The case study dissects how a surge in digital ad-driven sales, showcases the power of data-driven decision-making.

Read the full Sephora case study here .

Case studies for electronics and tools eCommerce retailers

Retail case study #23: screwfix.

Industry : Tools and hardware retail

Innovative omnichannel approach: The case study highlights how the company strategically implemented online ordering with in-store pickup, creating a seamless shopping experience that contributed to a significant sales growth of 27.9% in just one year.
Customer-centric strategies: Marketers can gain insights from Screwfix’s emphasis on customer experience. By studying customer feedback and incorporating personalized shopping experiences, Screwfix achieved success in the competitive home improvement sector.
Supply chain management for rapid growth: The company strategically opened distribution centers to keep up with demand, ensuring efficient inventory management for both online and in-store orders.
Mobile-first approach for trade professionals: With a customer base primarily consisting of trade professionals, the company’s mobile app allows for easy inventory search, order placement, and quick pickups, catering to the needs of time-sensitive projects.
Commitment to employee well-being and community: Retail executives and marketers can draw inspiration from Screwfix’s commitment to building a positive workplace culture.

Read the full Screwfix case study here .

Case Studies for toys and leisure eCommerce retailers

Retail case study #24: lego.

Industry : Toys and leisure retail

Global reach strategies: LEGO’s case study meticulously outlines LEGO’s focused approach, investing in flagship stores and understanding the local market nuances.
Diversification and licensing brilliance: LEGO’s commitment to diversification through licensing and merchandising emerges as a beacon for marketers. The collaboration with well-established brands, the creation of movie franchises, and themed playsets not only elevate brand visibility but also contribute significantly to sales.
Social media takeover: The case study unveils LEGO’s unparalleled success on social media platforms, boasting over 13 million Facebook followers and 10.04 billion views on YouTube. LEGO’s adept utilization of Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube showcases the power of social media in engaging customers.
User-generated content (UGC) as a cornerstone: LEGO’s innovative use of digital platforms to foster a community around user-generated content is a masterclass in customer engagement. This abundance of UGC not only strengthens brand loyalty but also serves as an authentic testament to LEGO’s positive impact on users’ lives.
Education as a marketing pillar: LEGO’s unwavering commitment to education, exemplified by its partnerships and $24 million commitment to educational aid, positions the brand as more than just a toy. Aligning brand values with social causes and leveraging educational initiatives, builds trust and credibility.
Cutting-edge mobile strategy: Sephora’s foresight into the mobile revolution is dissected in the case study, presenting a playbook for retailers aiming to capitalize on the mobile landscape.

Read the full LEGO case study here .

Tons of eCommerce retail inspiration, in one place

In the realm of business, success stories are not just tales of triumph but blueprints for aspiring executives to carve their paths to growth. The case studies explored here underscore a common theme: a mindset poised for evolution, a commitment to experimentation, and an embrace of emerging trends and technologies are the catalysts for unparalleled growth.

For any executive eager to script their growth story, these narratives serve as beacons illuminating the way forward. The dynamic world of retail beckons those ready to challenge the status quo, adopting the strategies and technologies that promise scalability. The key lies in constant optimization, mirroring the agility demonstrated by industry leaders.

As you embark on your growth journey, consider the invaluable lessons embedded in these success stories. Now is the time to experiment boldly, adopting new trends and technologies that align with your brand’s ethos. If you seek personalized guidance on navigating the intricate landscape of growth, our omnichannel retail experts at ContactPigeon are here to assist. Book a free consultation call to explore how our customer engagement platform can be the linchpin of your growth strategy. Remember, the path to scaling growth begins with a willingness to innovate, and your unwritten success story awaits its chapter of transformation.

Let’s Help You Scale Up

Loved this article? We also suggest:

Sofia Spanou

We use cookies to optimize our communication and to enhance your customer experience. By clicking on the Accept All button, you agree to the collection of cookies. You can also adjust your preferences by clicking on Customize.

Essential (Always Active)

Performance.

SUGGESTED TOPICS
The Magazine
Newsletters
Managing Yourself
Managing Teams
Work-life Balance
The Big Idea
Data & Visuals
Reading Lists
Case Selections
HBR Learning
Topic Feeds
Account Settings
Email Preferences

How E-Commerce Fits into Retail’s Post-Pandemic Future

Kathy Gramling,
Jeff Orschell,
Joshua Chernoff

New data from Ernst & Young suggests it will be an important part of the consumer experience — but not everything.

The pandemic has changed consumer behavior in big and small ways — and retailers are responding in kind. Since the early days of the pandemic Ernst & Young has been tracking these shifting trends using the EY Future Consumer Index and EY embryonic platform, which show a significant and widespread industry shift toward e-commerce. In this article, the authors suggest that while e-commerce will continue to be an essential element of retail strategy, the future success of retailers will ultimately depend on creating a cohesive customer experience, both online and in stores.

If we have learned one thing from the past year, it’s that things can change in an instant — changes we thought we had years to prepare for, behaviors we assumed we’d stick to forever, expectations we have of ourselves and our organizations. This is true of the way we live, the way we work, and the way we shop and buy as consumers.

KG Kathy Gramling is EY Americas Consumer Industry Markets Leader
JO Jeff Orschell is EY Americas Consumer Retail Leader
JC Joshua Chernoff is EY-Parthenon Americas Managing Director

Partner Center

Subscribe to our newsletter now and get an exclusive copy of our Ultimate Referral Marketing Playbook!

Latest from blog

Introducing the Ecommerce Agency Confidence Index: A New Dimension in Ecommerce Insights

Supercharge Your Store: Top 7 Shopify Speed Optimization Tips for Lightning-Fast Performance

The Future of AI in Ecommerce: Predictions and Trends to Watch

The best ecommerce case studies (63+ success examples).

The Best ecommerce Case Studies and Business Success Stories

1. how mellow made $200,000+ in preorder sales in less than a month.

Mellow is a company that makes a magical kitchen robot that syncs with your smartphone to cook for you at your convenience. The founder, Ze Pinto Ferreira was interning at Braun when he realized everything he knew (mechanical engineering, food, product design) could intersect to create impactful work.

He knew the sous-vide he wanted to create should change home cooking dramatically, but he also knew he couldn’t do it alone.

That’s when he set off to find a co-founder, Catarina who was working as a freelance designer.

He managed to convince her to use her talents on a potentially groundbreaking company and the two of them built Mellow together.

What They Did To Succeed

Using Trycelery.com as their pre-order platform, Mellow was launched to great success. They collected a total of $64,000 in pre-orders in ONLY 3 days and eventually made $200,000+ in less than a month.

Key Takeaway

In the case study, Ferreira mentioned how he marketed Mellow by reaching out directly to 100+ reporters. Given the background of both Ferreira and Catarina, though, PR seemed to be out of their reach.

This is where the classic Paul Graham business strategy comes into play. To get your startup off the ground, you have to do things that don’t scale. Don’t know how to do PR? Teach yourself, reach out to reporters, and get your product or service in publications like TechCrunch and TheNextWeb.

That's exactly what the founders of Mellow did, a process that earned them six figures within the first month of launching.

2. SumoJerky - The Results Of The 24-Hour Business Challenge

Noah Kagan is known for starting multiple companies and growing all of them to 7- and 8-figures in revenue (including the budgeting startup Mint.com). As part of a 24-Hour Business challenge to prove to anyone that they can start a business today, Noah asked his followers which business he should start so he could show he would make $1,000 a day.

The end result?

A beef jerky subscription company that made more than $1,000 in 24 hours.

What He Did To Succeed

Noah made $3,030 in total revenue in 24 hours.

Made a basic budget so he could work backwards to find out how much he needed to sell to make $1000.
Created a customer avatar so he knew who he should target
Started reaching out to people who he thought fit the customer avatar

Not only did he complete the challenge, but he also exceeded it (not after downing 4 cups of coffee though.)

Create a customer avatar to know who your target audience is. It’s astounding how many businesses do not know who their ideal customer is. Find out who is already buying your product or service and then reach out to more people like them. This is at the core of Noah's business process and what makes him such a notable success story.

3. How Two Friends Turned Up The Heat And Sold $170K Worth Of Spicy Honey in 10 Months

Honey? Yes!

Chilli peppers? Yes!

Together? Um.. what?

If you’re confused, don’t be. Spicy honey is the brainchild of MixedMade, a company that makes delicious products by mixing unexpected ingredients together.

Their first ever product – Bees Knees Spicy Honey – combines raw honey with a special blend of chilli peppers to create a balance of sweet mellowness and spicy intensity.

(Yum… Now I want some for myself!)

Their first $1,000 came from emailing their personal contacts and posting to their own personal Facebook pages.

Then, they made a list of potential press targets and aggressively pursued them.

This worked to great success.

A few modest mentions on smaller sites like Huckberry later grew into features on Uncrate, The Kitchn, CNBC, the Today Show, Bon Appetite, Esquire and Vanity Fair.

End result?

The press coverage exploded their business, making them the ultimate success story.

Everyone loves being featured on national media, but the press begins from the smaller guys.

In Trust Me, I’m Lying, media genius Ryan Holiday discusses the concept of “trading up the chain”, where larger publications often take content from smaller publications.

Start by getting yourself featured on smaller blogs and publications, and slowly “trade up the chain” to bigger features on national media. The return on investment of this particular marketing strategy is tenfold.

4. How Opena Case Hit 189% Of Their $15,000 Kickstarter Target And Built A Million Dollar Business

Pretty iPhone cases are aplenty, but truly useful and practical iPhone cases..?

That’s rare.

Meet Opena. Opena is an iPhone case with a slide-out bottle opener.

If you’ve ever fumbled at a party looking for a bottle opener, or wondered if your teeth were strong enough to crack that bottle of Heineken open…

Opena is the solution.

Opena launched on Kickstarter in June 2011 and successfully raised $28,303 (surpassing their initial $15,000 target.)

How did they do it?

They built a tribe of early adopters before they even launched the campaign. When they launched the campaign, they rewarded the early backers with early bird rewards, who then gleefully spread the word for them.

Within half an hour of going live, the early bird backers were all sold out.

The takeaway I want to highlight here has nothing to do with Opena’s excellent customer acquisition tactics. It does, however, have to do with the founder Chris Peters.

Just take a look at his bio:

Studied Industrial Design right out of high school.
Spent 4 years working at a large firm that specialized in medical machines. He was involved in industrial design work, prototyping and graphic interfaces.
Then worked at various design consultancies.
Took a year off to wakeboard.
Worked for a much smaller design consultancy, which helped him get a sense of what it’s like to run a small business.
Sold software for a year to learn how to do sales.
Ran his own design consultancy for 3 years.

This means that he had at least a decade of experience before even founding the company. This also means that he had deep expertise – both to identify a problem worth solving and developing a solution to fix the problem.

The biggest business problem we see is that most people make the jump to entrepreneurship without understanding that many successful entrepreneurs had built up deep domain expertise in their fields before starting a company. This makes it difficult to identify your strengths and weaknesses as an entrepreneur, which is an essential ability to have when launching a business.

5. #TheGreatBuild Project

Richard Lazazzera was part of Shopify ’s Growth Team, where he helped the platform grow from 60,000 to 200,000 merchants. A Better Lemonade Stand is his blog, where he shares comprehensive guides on how to build and grow eCommerce businesses.

#TheGreatBuild was a project he undertook to inspire others to build their own eCommerce sites. He built an eCommerce company – Finch Goods Co. – and detailed the entire journey on #TheGreatBuild (14 chapters long!)

Although Richard withheld his sales reports (so we don’t know how much he actually made), he did write a case study with an incredibly detailed step-by-step guide on how to start, brand and build your own eCommerce store.

Richard considers these 6 elements crucial to your business strategy for your eCommerce store — and he addressed it by introducing several apps:

Up-Selling at Checkout
Email Capture/Newsletter Signup
Abandon Cart Emails
Referrals ( Download ReferralCandy for your Shopify store here .)
Exit Intent Offer
Retargeting

The 6 elements that Richard mentioned in his post are fantastic. There are usually some holes that eCommerce entrepreneurs miss out in their rush to build their store and sell quickly, which Richard has kindly pointed out here.

Fix those areas and you should see your sales soar.

BONUS: How to Setup a Referral Program For Your Shopify Store

6 . Social Media Marketing: How A Small E-Commerce Site Attracted 293,000 Facebook Fans

Diamond Candles is a company that offers scented, soy-based candles that have a ring at the bottom. This has resulted in their customers spreading word-of-mouth about them due to the excitement of potentially winning the prize.

Instead of purchasing ads online to drive sales to their business, their predominant marketing strategy has been to utilize referrals and social media.

The key strategy behind their success has been user-generated content by its customer base.

Without spending a single cent on ads, these photos grew the company’s Facebook Fan Page to 469,661 fans while also boosting their product page conversion rate by 13%.

Knowing that more customer-contributed photos essentially made them more successful, they then created an environment of encouraging their customers to share more photos.

Here’s what they did:

A call-to-action found on the candle urging customers to take a photo with the ring and share it on social media, exposing their brand to even more potential customers (for free)
Giveaways that encourage customers to create and share images for a chance to win free products, developing customer loyalty
Share all the photos gathered on social media, creating an impression that it is normal to share Diamond Candle-related photos

Your customers are your greatest ambassadors. Find a way to incentivize them to spread word-of-mouth for you (or use ReferralCandy ). This not only increases your reach to potential customers but also improves customer loyalty.

7 . How To Create a $4,000 Per Month Muse In 5 Days

It’s Noah again! (Told you he’s famous.)

In this case study, Noah retells how he helped Daniel Bliss, a postal worker, turn his hobby into a real eCommerce business making $4,000 a month. The purpose? Help Daniel quit his day-job.

Daniel started his business by solving his own problem — neck pain while belaying.

Prior to meeting Noah, Daniel had already sourced a manufacturer and set up his own website to sell his shades. He was also off to a good start – having sold 12 pairs of shades to people in his climbing group.

But here’s the best part:

After meeting Noah, he HIT his goal.

Noah taught him the same thing he did for his SumoJerky business (detailed above):

Reverse-engineer the number of sales you need
Try different tactics to make it work

The purpose of this was to help Daniel figure out what marketing tactics work… and double down on them. In just 5 days, Daniel and Noah tried at least 10+ tactics and found his most successful channel.

The result:

Daniel received a message from a large online site, who placed an order of $4,200!

This marketing case study is less about the specific marketing strategy so much as it's about the entire business process. You will never know what will work for your business. Reverse-engineer the number of sales you need, try different tactics, review them and double down on those that worked for you.

8. How We Built an Ecommerce Business from Scratch and Generated $922.16 in Revenue in 3 Days

Do you need a long time to build an eCommerce business?

Some people believe so. After all, there are a lot of logistics to handle – domain, hosting, website content, pricing, supplier sourcing, launching, branding...

...not to mention the effort of reaching your potential customers with content marketing (and then analyzing it all on Google Analytics).

But WHAT IF you challenged yourself to set something up in 3 days?

Could it be done?

Apparently so.

Richard Lazazzera took up the challenge and proceeded to do everything (from determining what to sell to actually making sales)… in only 3 days.

In total, Richard made $922.16 in total revenue from this little experiment.

He went down every single possible marketing channel one-by-one, tried it and see what results it delivered. In fact, in only 3 days, he tested channels like Reddit, Product Hunt, personal outreach, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.

How’s that for fast?

Building an eCommerce store (in fact, any business) is a culmination of multiple small decisions. Make those decisions fast and push forward. You will never discover the results through thinking, only by testing.

9. How To Build A Menswear Brand - An Interview With Owen & Fred

Owen & Fred was a company founded by Mike Arnot after he realised that high-quality yet affordable American-made men’s accessories were not available in the market.

Make your own.

Mike then went on to create an e-commerce business that curates great products and help others like him do the same.

Repeat orders make up 35% of Owen & Fred’s revenue. In their industry, that’s incredible. Almost unbelievable.

That’s because of Owen & Fred values and prizes their customers. They made their products, their marketing campaigns and the entire customer experience amazing.

They even received a compliment from one of their customers: “never purchased from a company that actually delivered a product that amazing.”

Even if you’re an e-commerce store that does drop-shipping or product curation, you still have to ensure that your product(s) is amazing.

An amazing product makes marketing easier (because even great marketing can’t save bad products).

10. E-commerce: Moving beyond shopping cart abandonment nets 65% more checkout conversions

If you thought there were only several kinds of envelopes available, you would be wrong.

(Though I wouldn’t fault you, because I didn’t know myself either.)

Envelopes.com is an eCommerce business that sells almost any type of envelope you can imagine. White, brown, and green are common sights at this online marketplace specifically created for selling envelopes.

Remember what Richard Lazazzera said above in his marketing foundations?

One of them was Abandonment Cart Emails.

Envelopes.com discovered that a significant number of their website visitors visit multiple times before buying. They decided that these groups of visitors were the opportunity to help increase their online sales.

To do this, they sent emails to encourage these visitors to return, which reduced their abandonment rate and improved their conversions.

There are many touchpoints your customers will have with your business. Optimize these touchpoints and improve your sales.

11. How a Small Menswear Brand Utilized Word-of-Mouth to Get Over $420,000 On Kickstarter

Think space tech is cool?

How about something cooler? How about… integrating your clothes with space tech?

Fascinated now..?

That’s what Ministry of Supply did. Ministry of Supply is a menswear apparel brand that infuses fashion with space tech.

Their first-ever product, the Apollo features Phase-Changing Materials adapted from NASA spacesuits that help regulate your body temperature.

Trading up the chain.

Instead of directly approaching massive tech blogs like TechCrunch, Ministry of Supply started small. They pitched 150+ product-relevant blogs with customized emails, and got themselves featured, raising $30,000 in 5 days for their Kickstarter campaign.

Of course, as the above example of MixedMade shows, trading up the chain means bigger publications will follow the trail of smaller publications.

And naturally… that happened for MoS.

TechCrunch and Forbes later featured them — and that skyrocketed their Kickstarter funding to $400,000.

Find a unique angle to your product that everyone can easily remember — which will encourage your customers to “remark” about your product to their friends.

Their first product, Apollo was remarkable because it was clothes infused with space tech.

Their second product, a pressure-mapping sock, was eventually re-positioned to be “coffee socks” because everyone remembered they used coffee beans to remove the odours in the socks.

Make it easy to share, and people will.

12. How I Built an Online T-Shirt Business and Made $1,248.90 in 3 Weeks

Shopify’s core value on their blog is “do something, tell people.” (And of course, promote their own platform.)

That’s why it’s in their interest to show how easy it is to set up an eCommerce store in minutes and get sales in as little as 3 days (as seen in example #8.) But it’s also to our delight that we get to see firsthand how to build something from scratch.

(By the way, it's also as easy to set up ReferralCandy for your Shopify store .)

This time around, Shopify staff Tucker Schreiber took on the challenge of building a T-shirt business in a month.

In less than a month, ThinkPup, the store they set up generated $1,248.90 in revenue. Not fantastic, but a great start for a new store.

Tucker tried a variety of online marketing channels to acquire customers and found that he got the most sales from Reddit and Instagram.

This shows that you don’t have to overthink your marketing channels. Sometimes posting to free places like Reddit (where people already gather) will help you get sales.

Always test new marketing channels for your product. While you may think that [insert your niche’s favourite channel] is the way to go because that’s how people have done it, you will actually never know which channel will be profitable for you.

13. How An Ex-Con Turned His Life Around And Built an $80k per Month Ecommerce Business

As Robert himself mentions in this case study, the odds seemed stacked against him.

He was an ex-felon, he didn’t have a lot of experience in sales and marketing and he wasn’t in a great financial position.

However, something about being an ex-felon drove him to want to be different and stand out. And that’s how he eventually created National Parks Depot, an eCommerce business that sells outdoor adventure gears and apparels.

Facebook Ads.

Starting with a small ad budget of $60, he got a return of nearly $1,000 in sales. He then doubled the ad spend and got back double his ROI. He eventually scaled up his ad spend and hit $80,000 in sales.

Don’t be afraid to spend money to promote your products. Even without much money, Robert was willing to invest to test if Facebook Ads would work for his business.

Invest money to get more sales, so test to see if paid advertising can work for your business.

14. How I Imported Gaming Glasses With Alibaba and Made $2,416.51 In 5 Weeks

This is the another Shopify challenge Shopify employees took on. In Example #8, we saw how they started a matcha green tea company from scratch in ONLY 3 days. In Example #13, we saw how they began selling t-shirts online in LESS than a month.

This time around, another Shopify employee Corey Ferreira took on the challenge and decided to set up an online eCommerce store selling blue-light blocking glasses for gamers.

The result this time?

$2,416.51 in 5 weeks.

Similar to the rest of the guys who took up challenges at Shopify, he ran through multiple marketing channels pretty quickly.

The one that generated the most sales for him was setting up affiliate commissions and getting influencers to help promote his product.

( Pro-Tip: Supercharge your influencer marketing, and get more word-of-mouth sales with ReferralCandy .)

Are there people who command massive audiences in your niche? Reach out to them and propose an affiliate deal, and get them to promote your product to their audience.

15. How One Ecommerce Entrepreneur Explored New Sales Channels – And Took Revenues From $8K to $96K per Month

Eating healthily is kind of a chore.

We all know we need to eat healthier, sleep more and work out, but we do none of that. Because we’re too busy.

Enter Raw Generation.

Raw Generation is a company that makes drinking raw, unpasteurized juice from fresh fruits and vegetables more convenient.

Deal sites.

After initially promoting on social media and getting no traction, Jessica, the founder was introduced to Lifebooker, a deal site.

After promoting on Lifebooker, they hit a home run.

Majority of Raw Generation’s sales come from deal sites like Groupon, Gilt and Rue La La. (They are no longer using Gilt or Rue La La.)

Once you discover a marketing channel that is working for you, don’t go seeking new marketing channels. Double down on it and make it work for you over and over again.

16. 80/20 Validation: The Cheap And Fast Way To Prove A Business

[caption id="attachment_22471" align="aligncenter" width="600"]

Image: Kettle and Fire [/caption]

What the bleep is bone broth? Well, It is a broth simmered from bones -- and it has been touted as a superfood by the paleo community.

It’s not easily accessible online.

Well, at least until Kettle & Fire came onto the scene.

Kettle & Fire became the first-ever company to make a unique shelf-stable beef bone broth. This particular bone broth need not be frozen until it is opened.

By making sure the product was something people wanted.

Yes, bone broth was growing in popularity.

But the bigger entrepreneur question is not about popularity, but “will anyone put money down for this product?”

Justin and Nick made sure of that by throwing up a landing page and driving Bing traffic to it (classic Four Hour Work Week-style.) The end result? A simple experiment like this netted them $500 in sales, which confirmed their entire business model.

Never assume your product is something the market will want. Always test to find out (be it through messaging people, sending paid traffic etc.)

Bonus #1: ReferralCandy Case Studies

We (ReferralCandy) have been accumulating case studies from eCommerce entrepreneurs from multiple industries to show you how they have succeeded.

Here’s the list of case studies we’ve done for you:

Ecommerce Interviews
Powder City
BlissLights
Magical Butter
1950 Collective

Bonus #2: BigCommerce Case Studies

Our aim here in this blog post is to create the most comprehensive resource you can refer to when you want to be inspired or simply to understand how successful eCommerce entrepreneurs think.

Caveat: These case studies mostly include promoting BigCommerce’s services… but look past that and you’ll discover gems.

BombTech Golf
Spearmint LOVE
Exxel Outdoors
Bohemian Traders
Silk Road Teas
Bulk Apothecary
The Pink Lily Boutique
Di Bruno Bros
Sportbike Track Gear
Twirly Girl
US Patriot Tactical
Con Olio Oils & Vinegars
Raven and Lily
LaQuan Smith
Flash Tattoos
Pappy & Company

Bonus #3: Reddit Case Studies

Reddit is an under-utilized resource for learning about successful eCommerce case studies.

In fact, hidden in the subreddit r/entrepreneur are countless “unknown” yet successful entrepreneurs who are more than willing to share their wins and lessons with a larger audience. Here are some of the most popular posts on Reddit that detailed step-by-step of how they succeeded:

The Inner Workings Of A Subscription Box Company. From A 4K Site Purchase On Reddit to Close To $100,000 In Revenue In Less than 6 months. How We Did It, And What’s Next!
I created DicksByMail.com, went viral, and sold the company before even shipping out my second round of orders. AMA
How I literally started an Amazon business in about 1 month for about $1K
516 days ago at 20 years old I quit my job, dropped out of school, and founded an online hippie shop. This is how it turned out.
Beardbrand's guide to building a brand

As previously said, we aim to make this list the most comprehensive eCommerce case studies list found on the Internet.

That being said…

Did we miss out on any? Which case study do you think we should include?

Let us know in the comments!

P.S. If you enjoyed reading this, subscribe to our newsletter where we share our latest articles and helpful resources .

Share this article on

Si Quan is ReferralCandy's Content Marketing Manager. He is also the co-founder of BreakDance Decoded , an online breakdance training company. He loves standup comedy, and has a dream to visit at least 100 countries in his lifetime.

View all posts

14 Ecommerce Case Studies to Inspire You

We’ve spent hundreds of hours analyzing the world’s most successful DTC companies, including Sephora, Dollar Shave Club, Casper, Warby Parker, and Allbirds, to create ecommerce case studies you can use as inspiration for your own online store.

Today, we’ll share with you the 14 best ecommerce case studies that you can use to help drive more visitors to your website and convert more customers.

Let’s get right into it!

Shortcuts ✂️

The Farmer’s Dog marketing strategy: 6 tactics that you can apply in your own business
The secret behind the Care/of marketing strategy
Dollar Shave Club marketing success
How Casper took the mattress industry by storm and reached a $1.1 billion valuation
How Glossier became a $1.2 billion company
How Happy Box 10x-ed their online store revenue during Covid
How Warby Parker reached a $3 billion valuation and became an ecommerce giant
4 steps for growing your brand organically using ColourPop’s marketing strategy
Replicate Urban Outfitters’ marketing strategy with these 4 tips
How Gymshark bulked up into a $1 billion+ brand
How Allbirds went from a small startup to a billion-dollar sneaker brand in 4 years
How Lunya achieved $25M revenue
6+1 tips from Rituals to create meaningful moments online
13 solid tips for mastering the art of personalization like Sephora

1. The Farmer’s Dog marketing strategy: 6 tactics that you can apply in your own business

The Farmer’s Dog was founded in 2014 by two dog lovers. 6 years later, they’re delivering millions of meals monthly.

How did they do it?

We analyzed their sales funnel and boiled it down to 6 lessons you can apply in your own business to generate more sales.

Read the full The Farmer’s Dog case study .

2. The secret behind the Care/of marketing strategy

Every small ecommerce site owner dreams about a success story like Care/of’s. They achieved a $225 million valuation and were acquired by Bayer in just 6 years.

In this case study, we analyze the marketing strategies that Care/of used, including:

Quiz funnel
Content marketing
Social media
Paid advertising

Get inspired by these strategies to grow your own online sales.

Read the full Care/of case study .

3. Dollar Shave Club marketing success

Dollar Shave Club is one of the most talked-about DTC brands, and with good reason. Their famous “our blades are f***ing great” video went viral in just a few days. The video went on to collect 4.75 million views in the first 3 months and has over 27 million views today.

This launch video gave them a killer head start, and their witty brand voice, strong content marketing campaigns, and direct-to-consumer business model enabled them to grow further. They were so successful that Unilever bought the company in a billion-dollar cash acquisition in 2016.

In this case study, we cover everything you need to know about Dollar Shave Club’s marketing game plan to build your own billion-dollar empire.

Read the full Dollar Shave Club case study .

4. How Casper took the mattress industry by storm and reached a $1.1 billion valuation

In this case study, you’ll get a sneak peek into how Casper was able to build unprecedented trust and convince people to purchase mattresses online.

We look at their well-rounded content marketing strategy, which covers topics of interest for visitors at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

We also discuss how they utilize social proof to build trust, their unbeatable guarantee, and their referral marketing strategies . Don’t miss this one!

Read the full Casper case study .

5. How Glossier became a $1.2 billion company

Glossier is one of our favorite ecommerce case studies. If you have a beauty brand, you’ll want to read it.

We’ve studied Glossier’s entire customer experience to find 5 lessons you can use for your own brand:

Know your target audience and build relationships with them
Use (micro-) influencer marketing
Focus on branding
Publish engaging content
Provide an amazing user experience

Click the link below for all the juicy details.

Read the full Glossier case study .

6. How Happy Box 10x-ed their online store revenue during Covid

Happy Box is not as well-known as some of the other ecommerce stores on this list, but its growth is bound to inspire you. The company started as a side project and grew into a full-time ecommerce business during the Covid pandemic. In fact, they were able to achieve a 10x growth rate in 2021!

In this case study, we look at the marketing blueprint behind their astounding success.

Read the full Happy Box case study .

7. How Warby Parker reached a $3 billion valuation and became an ecommerce giant

The idea of buying eyeglasses online was uncharted territory for consumers a decade ago. But Warby Parker’s phenomenal marketing helped to overcome that challenge.

Their website crashed just after its official launch, their top 15 most popular styles sold out within 4 weeks, and they collected a waitlist of 20,000 customers during that time.

In this post, we share the key strategy Warby Parker used to reach its target audience so quickly and went on to become the $3-billion giant everyone knows.

Read the full Warby Parker case study .

8. 4 steps for growing your brand organically using ColourPop’s marketing strategy

In this case study, we share 4 key takeaways from ColourPop’s winning social media strategy:

Give freebies in exchange for authentic reviews
Build meaningful relationships with your influencers
Get your hashtag trending
Host Instagram giveaways

Check out the tips that you can easily copy for your own ecommerce company.

Read the full ColourPop case study .

9. Replicate Urban Outfitters’ marketing strategy with these 4 tips

Urban Outfitters is different from a lot of the ecommerce brands on this list because they didn’t start online and grow into a global retail giant… instead, they started as a brick-and-mortar business (back in 1970) and managed to make the successful transition to online sales.

It’s worth talking about them because they’re fantastic at keeping in touch with their target audience (Millennials and Gen Z). They also succeed in strengthening customer loyalty with a rewards program.

Check out this case study to learn how you can do the same with your business to drive sales.

Read the full Urban Outfitters case study .

10. How Gymshark bulked up into a $1 billion+ brand

Gymshark is well known for its influencer marketing strategy. In fact, the company was one of the early adopters of influencer marketing.

In this case study, we cover how Gymshark managed to build its fan base, and we spill the beans on what they’re still doing today to delight customers. Check out our 6 key takeaways below!

Read the full Gymshark case study .

11. How Allbirds went from a small startup to a billion-dollar sneaker brand in 4 years

Allbirds is among the most popular ecommerce businesses, especially among circles of professionals in Silicon Valley, including Google co-founder Larry Page. The company differentiates itself from competitors by focusing on three important principles:

Simple design
Sustainable shoes, made from nature

Check out this case study to learn how they fight with their competitors, how they use PR campaigns and word-of-mouth marketing to get people talking about the brand, and more.

Read the full Allbirds case study .

12. How Lunya achieved $25M revenue

Lunya was able to disrupt the women’s sleepwear industry quickly by creating products that bridge the gap between style and sensibility. According to Lunya co-founder Ashley Merrill, the brand was able to grow by putting customers first and never losing sight of the customer’s perspective.

We analyzed the steps Lunya took to build their brand and create a successful customer-centric strategy.

Read the full Lunya case study .

13. 6+1 tips from Rituals to create meaningful moments online

Rituals, founded in 2000, has an impressive product line including skincare, body care, makeup, and scented candles.

They really care about their customers and focus on creating an engaging customer experience online. We wanted to find out how they do it, so in this case study, we explore 6+1 tips from the marketing masters at Rituals.

Read the full Rituals case study .

14. 13 solid tips for mastering the art of personalization like Sephora

Sephora is a cosmetic behemoth that we can all learn from. What’s the secret behind their worldwide success?

In this case study, we share 13 tips they use to delight customers and create loyalty, including:

Driving sales through personalization
Helping customers make informed purchasing decisions
Using YouTube to drive conversions
Nurturing long-term customer relationships

Read the full Sephora case study .

Final thoughts

Well, that’s it—these are the best ecommerce case studies we’ve found during our extensive research! Hopefully you’ve found plenty of inspiration on this list.

No matter how big (or small) your company is or what industry you’re in, you can use tips and strategies from these case studies in your own store.

Which case study is your favorite? Let us know!

Nikolett Lorincz

Lead Generation Campaigns That Convert: Tips and Techniques

What are Teasers and How to Use Them Effectively?

Popup Teasers: What They Are & How to Use Them Effectively

Top 10 SumoMe Alternatives to Boost Your Sales in 2022

Top 10 SumoMe Alternatives to Boost Your Sales in 2024

Összes funkció
Grow Your Email List
Grow Your Messenger List
Reduce Cart Abandonment
Increase Avg. Cart Value
Promote Special Offers
Collect Customer Feedback
Facilitate Social Sharing
For Mid-Market/Enterprise users
Partners program
Terms & Conditions
Security & Privacy
We’re Hiring! ????
eCommerce Guides
Case Studies
All features
Book a demo

Product updates: Introducing OptiMonk AI

19 Ecommerce Case Studies You Need To Steal From

You’ve heard it before - always be testing.

But if you’re running an eCommerce business then the tasks of analyzing your site data and identifying leaks in the funnel usually get pushed to the bottom of your to-do list. Let's face it, you’ve got 97 other things you SHOULD be doing today.

So with that in mind, we've pulled together the following 19 real-world eCommerce lessons to help you cut straight to the chase in implementing some simple solutions to increase your online sales.

The ultimate growth marketing playbook

The exact 41 strategies we used to grow from 4-figure to 6-figure traffic in one year.

Send me the guide

In a hurry? Here are some eCommerce studies you need to steal from:

How to improve Conversion: Envelopes.com achieve 40%
How to improve Communication: Budapester increased mobile conversion by 29%
Make small changes: Edible Arrangements increases same-day sales by 8%
Make product benefits clear: Amerisleep increased checkouts by 13.9%
Reduce website friction: Company Folders increase conversion by 68%
Try cross selling products: Furniture retailer increased its AOV by 4.6% in 41 days
Reduce clutter and distractions: Taloon.com ditched social buttons
Use influencers to reach customers: Gwynnie Bee saw 5.85% CTR from Youtube influencer
Reduce risk of purchase: Express Watches provides authenticity stamp
Use events to drive sales: eCommerce companies saw a 27% spike during football world cup
Remove distractions: Underwater Audio bump sales by 41%
Get customers to take the next step: Kettlebell Kings’s takes advantage of user generated content to drive sales
Use comparison data: Paperstone took out their competition with data
Test and measure results: MVMT generated $90M in revenue in five years
Find alternate channels: ECCO Shoes decreased customer acquisition costs by 14%
Move past the product: Away generated $125M by standing out
Drive inbound through content marketing: Bavarian Clockworks reached $1m in sales
Build loyal engaged followers: Frank Body hit $20M in annual sales
Be relevant to your customers: Society Socks improved survey response rate by 200%

Save this guide: 19 eCommerce case studies

Learn from these 19 eCommerce case studies to see what problems they identified and how they implemented simple solutions to increase sales.

Send me the guide

[eCommerce case study #1] How to improve Conversion: Envelopes.com achieve 40%

A common eCommerce problem is prospects exiting the page before completing their order. As consumers, we've all done it before. So the team at Envelopes.com wanted to see if they could “rekindle the flame” and land some sales from hot leads using target followups. These are visitors who created an account and put an item in their shopping cart, so we can see some real intent to purchase at some stage down the track.

The Envelopes.com team were confident that sending targeted follow-up emails generally resulted in sales but weren’t sure of the best timeframe to send them. So they tested out email sends at two alternate time lapses post cart abandonment; the first group sent the following morning at 11 a.m. and the second group 48 hours post cart abandonment.

The emails sent at 11 a.m. the following day delivered:

an open rate of 38.63%
a click-through rate of 19.54% and
a conversion rate to a sale of 27.66%

The emails sent after 48 hours delivered:

an open rate of 38.01%
a click-through rate of 24.71% and
a conversion rate of 40.00%

Although sending these emails on the following day post cart abandonment had a slightly higher open rate, the most important figure, conversion to sale was significantly lower.

Take home message

Send a follow-up email to people who abandon their carts, if you’re not already doing it. Though Envelopes.com found that 48hrs later was the best performing time, a different cadence and time lag may work better with your customer base, so test out multiple alternatives. If you're looking for some assistance on the creative messaging front, we have included the exact email creative used by Envelopes.com here:

(Envelopes.com Reminder Email 1)

(Envelopes.com Reminder Email 2)

(Envelopes.com Reminder Email 3)

[eCommerce case study #2] How to improve Communication: Budapester increased mobile conversion by 29%

As anyone in the eCommerce realm can attest to, it can be pretty disheartening when a major influx in traffic doesn’t lead to an equally major spike in sales.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to German luxury fashion retailer Budapester a few years back.

Astoundingly, the brand’s website had been seeing hundreds of thousands of visitors each month—but its conversion rates were absolutely abysmal. The problem was even worse on mobile, where Budapester’s conversion rate was less than half that of its desktop alternative.

Upon realizing something needed to be done, the company’s first order of business was to communicate its unique selling propositions and other offers and policies more clearly to its visitors. This meant displaying information regarding free delivery, shipping options , and product availability prominently within its individual product pages:

(Budapester website | Source )

Along with this, Budapester also tweaked its site’s header—specifically, decreasing the logo’s size, and adding the above-mentioned info at the very top of the page. Again, this made it much easier for visitors to learn about these policies and offers right away.

Finally, the team also tweaked the appearance of its shopping cart page. From this...

Ecommerce case study: Budapester shopping cart - Before

( Source | Budapester shopping cart – Before)

Ecommerce case study: Budapester shopping cart - After

( Source | Budapester shopping cart - After)

Once more, the above information is now prominently displayed to the consumer—this time in two ways. In addition to the change to the header, the website now displays the company’s offer for free shipping in a green font that stands out at the bottom of the screen.

The end result of Budapester’s efforts, as Growcode explains :

“Its overall conversion rate increased by 12.5%, with its mobile conversion rate going up by nearly 30%. All in all, this equated to an additional 120,000€.”

There are three main lessons to take away, here:

Firstly, it’s essential that you communicate your value to your potential customers in a clear and concise manner. If you offer something of value—say, free shipping on orders over $100—but you don’t tell your visitors about it...how are they supposed to know?

On the other side of this, you want to avoid including redundant or unnecessary information anywhere on your eCommerce website. Not only might this be distracting to your visitors, but it also takes up physical space on your site that could have been put to better use.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that optimizing your site might not mean you need to do a complete overhaul. As was the case with Budapester, a few tiny, seemingly insignificant tweaks can be all your site needs to start generating a massive amount of conversions.

[eCommerce case study#3] Make small changes: Edible Arrangements increases same-day sales by 8%

Edible Arrangements had a fairly typical marketing challenge . They offer customers a same-day delivery option (and have done so for years) but people weren’t taking advantage of the offer because they didn’t know about it.

To educate customers about this option they significantly increased visibility with a large banner in an extremely prominent position on the homepage, just below the navigation bar. This created urgency around the offer by featuring a countdown timer to the deadline for same day delivery. It was impossible to miss or misunderstand.

Edible arrangements ecommerce case study

(Edible Arrangements website)

The result of this simple countdown feature? An increase in same-day sales by 8% !

You don’t need a new product to promote something. People might not know about a product or service you already have in play, so by increasing visibility to your existing audience, you may be able to snap up some quick wins. As a side note on this particular example, creating some urgency is always a good sales strategy. Encourage your audience to act now, instead of later (or never).

[eCommerce case study #4] Make product benefits clear: Amerisleep increased checkouts by 13.9%

Online mattress retailer Amerisleep had a problem that was quite similar to Budapester’s:

The company was seeing a ton of traffic on its website, but its conversion rates were nowhere near where the team would have liked them to be.

However, with the help of Growth Rock , Amerisleep decided to take a different approach to improving its website:

Rather than adding or deleting certain information, the team decided to focus on improving the messaging of the site’s copy—in a few ways.

First, the team dug deeper into the true benefits their products provide their customers. In Amerisleep’s case, this meant going beyond promising “a good night’s sleep,” and instead focusing on how getting a good night’s sleep every night can be absolutely life-changing.

(What would you do with more energy and less pain? | Source )

Secondly, the team aimed to reduce hesitation among its visitors by addressing the importance of immediate action. Rather than discussing the above benefits in a more hypothetical manner, the site’s copy was adjusted to address the idea that every night spent tossing and turning is another night visitors will never get back.

Lastly, the team tweaked some rather ambiguous copy comparing Amerisleep’s products to its competitors’ and made it more clear.

Originally, the website had made claims such as “No mattress is more carefully engineered.” The problem, here, is that this could be interpreted as “No mattress is more carefully engineered—but many are engineered equally as carefully as ours.”

The new copy read:

“Our innovative and proprietary materials let us build one of the most comfortable mattresses ever”

Much stronger, no?

Again, these relatively minor tweaks had major implications for Amerisleep: That 13.9% increase in conversion rate we mentioned equated to millions of dollars in added revenue over the course of the next year .

The overarching takeaway here is to write your copy with your audience in mind at all times.

This means:

Ensuring they understand the true value your product will bring to their lives, and what it will enable them to do or accomplish
Instilling a sense of urgency in your visitors, so they not only understand what they have to gain from using your product, but also what they have to lose by not using it
Double- (triple-, and quadruple-) checking your copy to be absolutely certain it means what you want it to mean—and that your visitors will interpret it in the same way

[eCommerce case study #5] Reduce website friction: Company Folders increase conversion by 68%

Company Folders is an established business but had a website that their CEO admitted was “obviously last year”, which is putting it gently.

The main problem they wanted to remedy was their online quote function. This is a vital step in their marketing funnel, so making the process as smooth as possible was essential to ultimately driving more sales for the business.

This sounds a simple task but with over 15 million product combinations, the current quoting system was highly complex. Further to this, there was a very high rate of prospects dropping out of the form partially completed.

Intuitively they assumed that getting the form onto a single page would help get prospects through the process, but after surveying their best customers, they realized that a redesign was necessary.

They took a cumbersome single step process with lots of options and broke it up into a multi-step bite size process (pictured below). Doing this resulted in a whopping 67.68% increase in total quotes .

(Company folders website)

Take home message #3

Breaking down a complicated system into manageable smaller steps can help keep people focused and increase conversion . Though additional clicks can often be seen as new opportunities to lose customers, the Company Folders experience tells us that streamlining to shorter stepped forms is the way to go right now.

How to take your business Direct-to-Consumer: The ultimate guide

Strategies, insights, and tips on how to start and scale a Direct-to-Consumer business.

DOWNLOAD NOW

[eCommerce case study #6] Try cross selling products: Furniture retailer increased its AOV by 4.6% in 41 days

(Note: For this study, the company did not wish to be named, so we will, of course, respect their privacy)

Perhaps the only thing better than getting potential customers to convert in the first place is getting them to add even more items to their cart before converting.

Our anonymous furniture company knows this—which is why they had been aiming to cross-sell a conditioning kit to customers purchasing leather furniture from their online store.

While sales of the company’s “main” products (i.e., furniture) were pretty decent, sales of these smaller complementary items weren’t all that great. The main problem was that most customers simply weren’t even aware the company offered the conditioning kit in the first place. Basically, the only way they would be exposed to the product is if they were to actively browse for it on the company’s website.

(We should also note that the price of the item being cross-sold costs only about 6% of the company’s average order value, while still adding a ton of value to the main product. In other words, making the additional purchase should have been a no-brainer.)

Knowing they needed to do a better job promoting such smaller-ticket items, the company decided to include a call-to-action directly within the shopping cart page when customers added an applicable big-ticket item to their cart.

So, the page went from looking like this:

Ecommerce case study: A furniture store cart | Before

(Your Shopping Cart | Source )

...to looking like this:

Ecommerce case study: A furniture store cart | After

( Your Shopping Cart | Source )

Customers were then able to add the supplementary item to their cart with a single click (by clicking the plus sign), and could also visit the smaller item’s product page by clicking anywhere else within the pink bar.

The results were nothing short of amazing: As per Growth Rock’s data , the company’s average order value had increased by $55 (4.6%) in only 41 days . This equates to an additional $180,000 in monthly revenu e!

The first takeaway, here, is that successfully cross-selling relevant items that add value to your bigger-ticket items (and that add value to your customer experience ) can have a major impact on your overall revenues.

But simply offering such supplementary products isn’t enough on its own. You also need to promote these items specifically as supplementary to the more valuable and expensive items you offer.

(For example, it’s more likely that consumers visiting a furniture eCommerce site will purchase leather cleaner if they’re in the market for leather furniture. That being the case, you’d want to focus on promoting the product specifically to these individuals.)

Going along with this, you also need to present your cross-sell offer at just the right time to get your customers to bite. Here, the company did so as visitors showed a high probability of making a large purchase — a prime moment to add extra value to their overall experience with the brand.

[eCommerce case study #7] Reduce clutter and distractions: Taloon.com ditched social buttons

Taloon.com got caught up in the trend towards social proof, with "Like” and "Share“ icons on their product pages. However, they noticed unusually low conversions on pages with those social sharing buttons.

To test what was going on they created two variants of the same page with and without the social share icons.

(Taloon.com website)

They assumed that by de-cluttering the page, it would keep customers focused on the task at hand - checking out.

The results?

“Pages without social share icons saw an improved “add to cart” click-through by 12% ”

Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it right. Always put yourself in the mindset of your customer, and keep them focused on the main task you want them to complete. Declutter pages with unnecessary actions to focus on making the sale.

[Ecommerce case study #8] Use influencers to reach customers: Gwynnie Bee saw 5.85% CTR from Youtube influencer

By now, you’re probably well aware of how effective influencer marketing can be in spreading brand awareness and social proof, and increasing engagement among your target audience members.

A few years ago, rental clothing e-retailer Gwynnie Bee realized this exact same thing. While the team had experienced a decent amount of success using a number of other marketing strategies (such as Facebook Ads), they knew they could be generating a lot more business than they were.

So, the company partnered with Reelio to get the ball rolling.

Working with Reelio, Gwynnie Bee began digging through YouTube’s massive database of influencers in search of those who aligned with the clothing company’s target market.

Ecommerce case study: Gwynnie Bee ecommerce influencer marketing on YouTube

(Search results for "plus size" on Youtube)

The team’s first order of business was to create a list of potential candidates who fit the “surface-level” characteristics of their target market. This meant finding influencers who were female, aged 18 or older, and who typically wore clothing of sizes 10-32.

Now, here’s where Gwynnie Bee diverged from the “typical” path most brands take. Rather than looking specifically for individuals who often worked with other fashion companies, GB also considered those whose audience overlapped with their own. This meant looking at influencers who create content related to more tangential topics, such as lifestyle, accessories, food, and more.

The team then developed guidelines for their chosen influencers, which enabled them to create content that was authentic and non-scripted—but that also aligns with Gwynnie Bee’s overall marketing goals, as well. In addition to creating content to be presented on the influencer’s channel, GB’s influencers also created a virtual “closet” on the brand’s website to showcase the specific items they loved most.

The results of Gwynnie Bee’s influencer campaigns were...well...pretty darn good. While the average click-through rate of all influencer campaigns hovers around the 2% mark, GB’s campaigns saw a CTR of 5.85% — nearly three times the average .

If you’re just getting started with influencer marketing, the main thing to focus on is finding content creators with an engaged audience full of consumers who align in some way with your own target market. They don’t have to overlap entirely, but you, of course, want to be sure that the people who end up seeing your products will have a genuine appreciation for, and interest in, your brand.

As far as content creation goes , you’ll want to provide your influencer’s with almost completely free rein in order to ensure authenticity. This will communicate to your influencer’s audience the idea that the influencer actually uses your products, and aren’t simply promoting them because they’re getting paid for it.

Finally, you might also consider inviting your influencers to create content on your channels as well as their own platforms. Again, this will prove to their audience that they truly are superfans of your brand who actively engage with everything your company has to offer.

[eCommerce case study #9] Reduce risk of purchase: Express Watches provides authenticity stamp

This is a classic problem for online stores; Do you boast the lowest price or the most authentic products ?

The team at Express Watches were debating whether to communicate a ‘lowest price guarantee’ versus a stamp of authenticity on their website. They tested variants with both, each telling a different story about the clientele: bargain hunters vs aficionados. The results were pretty surprising.

(Lowest prices vs highest authenticity)

By labeling the site with a badge of authenticity, Express Watches saw an increase in online sales of 107% . A huge differential from the price based messaging, simply from a little seal of authenticity.

You may think you know what your audience wants, but testing out some alternate value proposition could surprise you.

[eCommerce case study #10] Use events to drive sales: eCommerce companies saw a 27% spike during football world cup

The Soccer/Football World Cup is not only the most-watched sporting event on television of the 21 st century – it is the most-watched event of any kind, period.

Needless to say, such an enormous audience makes for some major opportunities for eCommerce companies all over the world.

Of course, it also made for heft competition for brands operating in niches like sporting goods, clothing, and memorabilia.

As SEMRush explains, the brands that came out on top were the ones who:

Increased their presence on the right channels (specifically, social media),
Adjusted their ad copy to target soccer fans from specific nations (e.g. whose teams were making a run for the World Cup)
Developed relevant and valuable offers to address time-sensitivity (e.g. fast and free shipping to ensure orders were received before the Wolrd Cup had ended)

The opportunistic initiatives led to some MASSIVE revenues for eCommerce companies. In Brazil, eCommerce purchases spiked by $16.6 BILLION, or 27% above the average . After Germany ended up winning, German-based eCommerce activity increased by a whopping 75%!

First and foremost – and this goes any business, online or brick-and-mortar – you need to recognize an opportunity when it comes up and strike when the iron’s hot.

With this in mind, it’s worth noting that Brazillian-based eCommerce activity dropped by 17% immediately once the national team was eliminated from the tournament.

As far as recognizing these opportunities, you’ll want to keep an eye on upcoming events – be it a sports tournament, music festival, fashion show, etc. – that relate, in some way, to your brand’s offerings.

The goal is to “piggyback” off of the hype created by these events and market your products to those who are attending or engaged with the event in some way or another.

There are two main ways to go about this:

You might simply do as the brands mentioned above did, and ramp up your marketing initiatives throughout the timespan of the event, or, if possible, reach out to the host of the event to see if they’d be interested in partnering up in some way. This might mean sponsoring the event (in lieu of upping your ad spend) or even setting up a pop-up shop at the actual event

[eCommerce case study #11] Remove distractions: Underwater Audio bump sales by 41%

Underwater Audio had a problem with visitors who were in the middle of their sales funnel, researching specific products but then dropping off at the comparison page. When they noticed this leak they decided to get to the bottom of it.

Here are the old and new versions of the page. At first glance, they don’t look too different, but the devil is in the detail.

(Underwater Audio website page comparison)

The original one was a bit more cluttered with the table formatting breaking up the flow of information. To test what the problem was, they redesigned the comparison page to make it simpler and more streamlined.

As their CEO said:

“The (rather) unattractive table had information in terse phrases organized in no particular fashion (activity, seal, size, features, warranty, depth). The paragraphs continued below the fold and essentially repeated the table, with only a few unique additions hidden in the text. In short, it was not the most engaging page!”

The new version did away with the data tables, streamlined the text, and put everything above the fold.

The result? The redesigned page had an increase in online sales of 40.81% .

To quote Occam's Razor, “the simplest solution is often the best” and the simpler flow worked wonders for Underwater Audio. Find pages in your pipeline where users are dropping off and see how you can simplify them to focus your customers.

[eCommerce case study #12] Get customers to take the next step: Kettlebell Kings’s takes advantage of user generated content to drive sales

In yet another case of “x isn’t working as well as we thought, let’s try something else,” the owners of fitness equipment startup Kettlebell Kings switched to a more organic approach after realizing their Google Ads campaigns were costing the company way too much money.

The team’s main focus: Instagram.

Their initiative started simply enough, creating instructional content focused on teaching their audience how to get the most out of their workout sessions.

As engagement began to soar, the team also noticed that its customers had also begun creating their own content featuring Kettlebell Kings’ products—which led the company to begin using this UGC to their advantage.

Ecommerce case study: Kettlebell Kings user-generated Instagram guideline

(#kettlebellkings on Instagram | Source )

In addition to the more audience-controlled content featured in the image above (that is, content featuring Kettlebell King’s products but not published directly on the brand’s Instagram page), the team also began re-posting certain UGC on their own page. As Gwynnie Bee did with its influencers, the Kettlebell Kings team developed a list of criteria such content should follow in order to be featured—but also allowed for some creative freedom on the customer’s part, as well.

While the content being created (by both the team and their customers) did lead to an increase in brand awareness and engagement , the team took things a step further by adding calls-to-action to many of their posts. For example, many posts that featured specific products were made shoppable, while others included an option to “swipe up” to learn more, download additional content, or sign up for the company’s mailing list.

Ecommerce case study: Kettlebell Kings' Instagram story

(Ketttlebell's Instagram shoppable story | Source )

While the brand’s Instagram presence has directly led to “hundreds of thousands” of dollars in revenue, Buffer reports that Kettlebell King’s social media initiatives have played a major role in the company’s rise well into the 7-figure mark .

There are a few lessons to learn here:

Success on social media requires an intensely strategic approach to content creation and presentation. It’s all about presenting your products in a way that showcases their true value to your customers, and how your customers can get this value from your products in the first place.

While user-generated content is always appreciated, that doesn’t mean you need to feature every piece of UGC that comes your way. Again, you only want to showcase content that paints your product in the best light possible, and that provides value of some kind to your audience.

Finally, while using content to enhance engagement is great and all, your main goal should be to get your audience to take “the next step.” Whether it be signing up for your newsletter, reaching out to your company for more info, or going through with an initial purchase, make sure your content prompts your potential customers to engage further with your brand.

The ultimate guide to growing & scaling an eCommerce business

Everything we've learned throughout our 18+ years journey in a 30,000-word PDF guide.

[eCommerce case study #13] Use comparison data: Paperstone took out their competition with data

Paperstone is a small paper company that competes with large brand big box stores like Staples and Viking. With most people defaulting to the brands they know best, Paperstone needed to find a way to leverage their strengths against the competition; lower prices.

Rather than paying top dollar to compete for advertising attention, they simply included a comparison table on their homepage showing their pricing against that of their competitors.

(Paperstone website)

This simple table increased online sales by 10.67%! Just think about how much revenue that would mean for your business, without running any new promotion or campaign .

Assess your competition and identify your strengths. Then showcase these against your competitors’ weaknesses to make your business look like the obvious choice when compared.

[eCommerce case study #14] Test and measure results: MVMT generated $90M in revenue in five years

As a brand new company looking to disrupt the rather saturated luxury watch market, MVMT certainly had its work cut out for them in terms of generating visibility and brand awareness.

So, the team turned to advertising via Facebook.

As far as creating content, MVMT’s approach was similar to Kettlebell Kings’: They worked within specifically-defined guidelines to ensure consistency, created a variety of content, and included clear CTAs within each post.

However, they didn’t simply begin creating brand new content for these ads. Rather, they took a look at the content that had already seen organic success, and routed ad spend directly to promoting these specific posts .

eCommerce case study: MVMT Facebook ads experiment

(Take a guess which one MVMT decided to promote...)

Though they had clearly figured out a way to ensure their ads would generate even more engagement (based on these previous engagement metrics), they also took things a step further by A/B testing various aspects of their ad content, from the images used to the copy of the ad.

While there are a number of lessons to take away from MVMT’s approach, here, the main thing to realize is that creating ads on any platform should never be a gamble.

MVMT could have easily created new ad content targeting its potential customers and simply hoped for the best. Instead, they used data they had already collected to inform their approach to creating Facebook Ads targeting specific audience segments. In turn, these ads were all but

[eCommerce case study #15] Find alternate channels: ECCO Shoes decreased customer acquisition costs by 14%

While creating paid ads is more expensive than going the organic route, some paid options can end up being more (or less) costly than others.

Which is exactly why ECCO Shoes decided to partner with Digital Gearbox while switching from using text-based Google Ads to using image-based Google Shopping Ads.

The first step of the process was to determine which specific products to focus their ad budget on, as well as which audience(s) to target. While the team would end up creating ad campaigns for all of the brand’s products, the initial focus was on getting top-sellers in front of the right potential customers.

The team then developed and optimized their product feed to ensure that any and all necessary information was included within their ads and product pages. This information includes product specs, product images, and any other additional info (such as shipping charges and return policies).

After the ad campaigns went live, the team then shifted into “experimental mode,” where they assessed the performance of each ad and ad campaign, making ongoing adjustments as necessary. In addition to continuous optimization of the product feed and ad content, this also meant adjusting bidding and targeting definitions, as well.

Overall, ECCO’s Google Shopping initiatives proved to be much more cost-effective than text-based ads, as the company’s cost of customer acquisition dropped by an amazing 14% .

The main lesson here is that eCommerce companies with physical products should absolutely look into advertising via Google Shopping.

Google Shopping allows you to showcase much more information in one place than most other forms of advertising (especially text-based Google Ads). In addition to being able to include product specs and service-related info, the inclusion of product imagery alone is enough for Shopping ads to be considered more effective than their text-based relative.

[eCommerce case study #16] Move past the product: Away generated $125M by standing out

As we’ve discussed at length before , Away is the essentially the byproduct of co-founder Jen Rubio’s frustrating experience with an overly-expensive and not-so-durable piece of luggage.

While it would be easy enough for her and partner Steph Korey to simply develop a more sturdy and affordable alternative product to base their new company around, they realized this alone wouldn’t be enough to get their foot in the door in an already saturated market.

Instead, they positioned Away not as just a luggage company, but as a brand focused on all things travel.

Essentially, their reasoning came down to the fact that luggage is more of a means to an end than an end in itself.

As Rubio explains,

"Even before we were like 'let's choose luggage,' we were talking about editorial content and all we can do in the travel space. We see the long-term potential for Away to be much, much more than just selling luggage."

This outlook led to a number of content-related opportunities for the team at Away. Instead of creating content centered around luggage (which, let’s be serious, probably wouldn’t be all that engaging), they created blog posts, podcasts, and even a physical magazine focused on the lifestyle behind luggage and travel.

This enabled the company to stand out in a crowded market, and provide value to their target audience in a way no other luggage brand does. This, in turn, led to massive engagement—and absolutely massive growth for the company, as well.

The take home message here touches on the point we mentioned earlier when discussing Amerisleep’s shift in copywriting strategies:

It’s not about what your product is, so much as what it allows your customers to do, that makes them value your brand.

Rubio and Korey took this idea and ran with it, creating a variety of content to help their audience get more value out of their travel experiences across the board. For them, it’s more important to promote the lifestyle their product is a part of—not just promoting the product itself.

Do you want your target consumers to purchase your products? Of course. But, as Away proves, this can be done in a way so that your promotional materials actually provide value to your audience—and don’t come off as “salesy.”

[eCommerce case study #17] Drive inbound through content marketing: Bavarian Clockworks reached $1m in sales

If you read that headline and your jaw dropped, get ready for another shocker:

With the help of CanIRank’s services , the team at Bavarian Clockworks reached this mark as a brand new company with essentially zero initial following and a very limited marketing budget.

First things first, the team needed to create some high-quality, valuable content for its intended audience. While they, of course, focused on creating instructional and informational content on topics like clock care and repair, they also created content on more tangential topics such as German culture and European travel, as well.

Having a limited marketing budget, they then aimed to promote their content and brand via organic means, such as guest posting and giving interviews to be published on related sites. This enabled the brand to gain some much-needed visibility on established websites with an engaged and relevant following.

The final piece of the puzzle came in the form of technical, on-site SEO. This involved optimizing the organizational structure of the site’s content, creating interlinks between blog posts, and enhancing site loading time.

Ecommerce case study: Bavarian Clockwords SEO case study

(Bavarian Clockworks progress graph)

The results speak for themselves: Bavarian Clockworks ended up hitting the 7-figure mark a mere three years from their humble beginnings .

Perhaps the main thing to take away from Bavarian Clockworks’ success story is that generating an enormous following via organic means is absolutely still possible.

While it’s not exactly easy to do so—and definitely won’t happen overnight—startups on a strict budget might want to consider focusing on building an organic following before diving into the world of paid advertising. Not only is it more cost-effective, but it also inherently allows you to build connections with more established brands that can help you grow well into the future.

That being the case, growing an audience via organic means isn’t an “if you build it, they will come” type deal. You’ll need to do a bit of legwork in order to gain traction.

As the team at Bavarian Clockworks did, this means:

Creating interesting, engaging, and evergreen content that your target audience will find incredibly valuable
Partnering with established companies and organizations to help promote your content to relevant audiences
Providing your new audience with numerous opportunities to engage further with your brand

[eCommerce case study #18] Build loyal engaged followers: Frank Body hit $20M in annual sales

We’ve talked about Frank Body’s meteoric rise to success before —and with good reason.

After all, the beauty industry is already saturated as it is. So it’s pretty crazy to think that a newcomer to the niche would be able to crack $20 million in annual revenue in less than four years.

While (as we mention in our full-length case study) the brand has done a number of things to make this happen, it’s worth pointing out that all of their efforts circle around one main premise:

Creating a community of individuals who feel free to let their guard down, have some fun, and just be themselves.

Even their influencers get in on the action:

Ecommerce case study: Frank Body influencer

(Aviva's Instagram promoting Frank Body)

Now, this might not sound like that big of a deal; a lot of companies are falling back on the “be yourself” motif nowadays.

But, remember: Frank Body is a beauty retailer. In that industry, the message behind most brands’ marketing campaigns is “use our product to look like a Hollywood star instead of plain ol’ you.”

Frank Body is all about allowing their customers to look how they want to look—not how they think they’re “supposed” to look.

It’s this fundamental position that has allowed the brand to grow a following of over 600,000 people, and to reach well into the seven-figure mark in a mere four years

The main message to take away from Frank Body’s strategy, here, is to truly understand who your target customers really are before you build your brand around them.

While this piece of advice isn’t exactly some carefully-guarded secret or anything, the reality is that most brands think they’re marketing to their target audience, when really, they’re marketing to a caricature of them .

In many cases, this is because brands simply follow the same path others in their niche have before them. While there’s nothing wrong with doing so if it works for your brand, there are other times where you’d be better off bucking the trend and going your own way.

For Frank Body, this meant building a brand around a community of people who use beauty products to show off their natural selves, not hide them. While there’s no way of knowing for sure, it’s rather safe to say the company probably wouldn’t have experienced the same amount of success had it gone the typical marketing route most beauty companies typically do.

While this piece isn’t exactly some carefully-guarded secret or anything, the reality is that most brands think they’re marketing to their target audience, when really they’re marketing to a caricature of them .

[eCommerce case study #19] Be relevant to your customers: Society Socks improved survey response rate by 200%

We’ve mentioned a few times now the importance of engaging with your audience to gather feedback and make improvements to your products and services.

But the fact is, there’s no guarantee your customers will take it upon themselves to provide this feedback in the first place. Even if you actively reach out to them, the odds of them not responding are still greater than the chances of them getting back to you.

Knowing this, the team at Society Socks worked to develop a collection of user-friendly surveys targeting consumers at various stages of the sales funnel and buyer’s journey. Their goal was to ensure that each recipient received a survey that was 100% relevant to their experiences with the brand, and also that each survey was incredibly easy to complete.

Ecommerce case study: Society Socks and Feedier customer satisfaction survey

(Society Soda feedback)

As co-founder Filip Pejic explains:

"Our current campaigns are set up at various stages including Post-Purchase, Mid Subscription and at Cancellation. We’ve integrated the solution into our email system to send automated flows depending on our customers’ stage in the buying process. This allows us to gain a ton of feedback at every point in a customer’s journey and control the number of surveys they receive."

Society Socks also took a look at the more logistical aspects of survey delivery, such as delivery method and timing. This ensured that their audience would receive the surveys on the optimal channel (in this case, email) at a time in which they were most likely to respond.

The most obvious takeaway here, of course, is that you need to learn as much as you can about your customers’ expectations and experiences with your brand.

As Feedier explains, this means defining or determining:

Your various customer personas and segments
The aspects of your products (and overall service) each persona values most
The aspects each persona wishes could be improved

As we’ve said before, gleaning this information (and more) from your audience will allow you to make improvements to your products and services that actually matter to the people who keep your company in business.

Schedule a Free Demo Today!

Here’s what you can expect:

Walkthrough: An introduction to the Core dna platform.
Access to a free trial: Free trial access to the platform to test all the features.

Hailing from Ireland, Paul is a fan of good food and coffee. For Core dna he’s responsible for Partnerships both with agencies and 3 rd party integrators.

Storytelling in eCommerce: 6 Simple Strategies & Tips

Content Marketing

Artificial intelligence in eCommerce - Everything you need to know

eCommerce Business

6 Must Haves for a Product Page that Convert

Platform Strategies

Commerce insights

Black Friday Marketing: A Marketer's Crash Course [2022 Edition]

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Publications
Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

Advanced Search
Journal List
J Behav Addict
v.3(2); 2014 Jun

Towards an understanding of Internet-based problem shopping behaviour: The concept of online shopping addiction and its proposed predictors

1 Henley Business School, The University of Reading, Greenlands, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK

ARUN DHANDAYUDHAM

2 Consultant in Addictions Psychiatry, CRI – Northamptonshire, Northampton, UK

Background: Compulsive and addictive forms of consumption and buying behaviour have been researched in both business and medical literature. Shopping enabled via the Internet now introduces new features to the shopping experience that translate to positive benefits for the shopper. Evidence now suggests that this new shopping experience may lead to problematic online shopping behaviour. This paper provides a theoretical review of the literature relevant to online shopping addiction (OSA). Based on this selective review, a conceptual model of OSA is presented. Method: The selective review of the literature draws on searches within databases relevant to both clinical and consumer behaviour literature including EBSCO, ABI Pro-Quest, Web of Science – Social Citations Index, Medline, PsycINFO and Pubmed. The article reviews current thinking on problematic, and specifically addictive, behaviour in relation to online shopping. Results: The review of the literature enables the extension of existing knowledge into the Internet-context. A conceptual model of OSA is developed with theoretical support provided for the inclusion of 7 predictor variables: low self-esteem, low self-regulation; negative emotional state; enjoyment; female gender; social anonymity and cognitive overload. The construct of OSA is defined and six component criteria of OSA are proposed based on established technological addiction criteria. Conclusions: Current Internet-based shopping experiences may trigger problematic behaviours which can be classified on a spectrum which at the extreme end incorporates OSA. The development of a conceptual model provides a basis for the future measurement and testing of proposed predictor variables and the outcome variable OSA.

INTRODUCTION

Shopping has been defined as: “the process of browsing and/or purchasing of items in exchange for money” ( www.businessdirectory.com ). It is a process that consists of a number of stages including the search for product information, the processing and assimilation of information in order to evaluate alternative product options, as well as the actual purchase act. A shopping episode may include some or all of these stages and so may or may not include the actual act of purchase. Shopping is today considered both a functional or utilitarian activity as well as a social or leisure activity with hedonistic features ( Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982 ). The enjoyment element has been enhanced by the introduction of large shopping malls offering a range of activities including shopping, eating and entertainment. Authors such as Langrehr (1991) have identified a shift in beneficial experience for the shopper from the purchase item itself to the experience of the shopping process. The highly experiential and sensory nature of shopping provides rewards in itself to the individual, separate from the rewards of the purchase act.

Over the past decade the shopping process has been altered by the advent of the Internet. Internet or online shopping offers a range of benefits in terms of both the information search stage of shopping ( Rose & Samouel, 2009 ) as well as the act of purchase. Cheung, Chan & Limayem (2005) identify a range of internal and external factors that influence consumer purchase behaviour online. These include internal characteristics such as the individual shopper’s attitude to the Internet medium, personal motivations, perceptions of risk and personal innovativeness as well as external benefits that derive from the medium itself such as: convenience, ease of use, perceived usefulness, control and enjoyment ( Cheung et al., 2005 ; Gefen, 2003 ; Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2001 ). The effect of these benefits has been a steady increase in consumer use of online shopping and the consequential value to e-retailers. Given the ease with which the online shopper can now access e-retail websites and purchase online, the penetration of online shopping within the general population is increasing in the UK and other developed countries. Current estimates are that 60% of the UK adult population now take part in online shopping activity (OECD, 2012) and 2012 saw a year-on-year growth of 16% in online sales against an overall increase in retail growth of 4% (Mintel, 2013).

In the UK statistics make dismal reading in terms of negative behaviour leading to addictions. It is estimated that 20% of the population smoke; 200,000 people are in treatment for heroin dependency; over 20% of the adult population is clinically obese and a similar percentage of the population drink alcohol over the recommended limits ( Parsons, 2010 ). Non-chemical addictive behaviours have been referred to as “excessive appetites” and significantly documented in terms of their epidemiology, etiology and comorbidity ( Orford, 2006 ). Research identifies that negative or problem-based behaviours can develop in relation to both consumption ( Faber, O’Guinn & Krych, 1987 ; Hirschman, 1992 ) and buying (Black, 1996 , 2007a , 2007b ; O’Guinn & Faber, 1989 ; Workman & Paper, 2010 ).

A range of terminology has developed in the domain including: “compulsive buying” ( O’Guinn & Faber, 1989 ; Workman & Paper, 2010 ), “impulsive purchasing” (Baumeister, 2002 ); “compulsive consumption” ( Faber et al., 1987 ; Hirschman, 1992 ); “impulsive spending patterns” ( Vohs & Faber, 2003 ) and shopping addiction ( Sussman, Lisha & Griffiths, 2010 ). The consequences of such behaviour include high levels of debt; negative emotions such as depression or feelings of frustration, shame, guilt and alienation; legal problems; and relationship break-down ( Lejoyeux & Weinstein, 2010 ; O’Guinn & Faber, 1989 ).

There is evidence emerging that problematic shopping behaviour is now occurring online ( Chen, Tarn & Han, 2004 ). The subject of Internet-based problematic shopping behaviour is therefore an important area of academic research for two reasons. First, given the rapid growth in e-re-tailing, there is currently limited research that identifies the predictive factors of such behaviour ( Sun & Wu, 2011 ). Second, isolation of the predictors of such addictive behaviour would raise awareness amongst the medical profession, e-retailers and consumer groups of this emerging condition. Both of these requirements are met by this paper which presents the theoretical support for a conceptual model of online shopping addiction. The objective of the paper is two-fold. First it reviews the literature in relation to problematic buying behaviour. Second it develops a model that hypothesises seven predictors of the behaviour drawn from prior literature in both the clinical and consumer behaviour literatures.

A selective review of two fields of literature was undertaken: consumer behaviour and clinical addiction. The literature search was conducting using the following key databases: EBSCO, ABI Pro-Quest, Web of Science – Social Citations Index, Medline, PsycINFO and Pubmed. The following key terms were used: “addiction”, “Internet addiction”, “online addiction”, “technology addiction”, “compulsive buying”, “compulsive shopping”, “shopping addiction”, “impulsive buying”, “shopping behaviour”, “online shopping”, “problem online shopping behaviour”, “disordered shopping behaviour”, “ pathological shopping behaviour”. Analysis of the articles was conducted by the authors using the criteria as expressed in the title and objectives of the paper. By this method the authors identified the nature of existing research in the field, epistemological assumptions and methodological approaches. This classification provided a framework through which to analyse the literature.

SHOPPING BEHAVIOUR

Behaviours are reinforced via the rewards that they elicit. In some respects this aspect of human behaviour is central to survival such as the rewarding nature of food ( Davenport, Houston & Griffiths, 2012 ). Reward sensitivity has been identified as a component of personality and therefore individuals vary in terms of the degree to which they are sensitive to rewards in their environment and the degree to which they are able to control their responses to such rewards. The rewards of shopping have been recognised to extend beyond the actual act of purchase and may include pleasure afforded by the shopping process, the attention and praise of others as well as relief from anxiety or stress ( Davenport et al., 2012 ). Individuals exhibiting problematic buying behaviour have been found to have higher levels of anxiety in response to external and/or internal stimuli and excessive shopping sessions or “binges” have been found to provide quick and ready relief of such anxiety ( O’Guinn & Faber, 1989 ). The terms “compulsion” and “addiction” are both used (often interchangeably) within the literature relating to problematic shopping behaviour, and more recently to online shopping behaviour and so we explore both here.

Addictive behaviour

Addictive behaviour is a term applied to excessive behaviour that has negative consequences. The word “addiction” is most often used by clinicians to refer to a condition that involves intense preoccupation with the behaviour and leads to physiological changes particularly in the brain. It is characterised by a loss of control and negative outcomes for the individual either psychologically, physically or socially ( Sussman et al., 2010 ). Psychiatrists use the criteria contained in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fourth Edition” ( American Psychiatric Association, 2000 ), which is internationally recognised and accepted, to diagnose any disorder with a mental health component and which provides 7 criteria for identification of an addiction dependency.

An addiction is conceptualized as a disorder involving both impulsivity and compulsivity. Impulse control disorders are characterised by two features. Firstly the inability to resist an impulse, drive or temptation even if it is harmful to the individual. Secondly there is a period of tension or arousal prior to the act, relief during the act and regret or guilt after the act ( Benson, 2008 ). People with an impulse control disorder are less likely to have any insight into their behaviour and their ability to resist the behaviour is diminished ( Benson, 2000 ).

Compulsive behaviour

A compulsion is part of the addictive process. The American Psychiatric Association ( 1985 , p. 234) defines compulsions as “repetitive and seemingly purposeful behaviours that are performed according to certain rules or in a stereotyped fashion”. Such repetitive behaviour is often extreme and takes a ritualistic form. It has the purpose of relieving some form of anxiety or tension within the individual but may result in inappropriate or disruptive consequences ( O’Guinn & Faber, 1989 ; Ullman & Krasner, 1969 ).

Problematic buying behaviour

La Rose & Eastin ( 2002 , p. 549) differentiate between “impulsive”, “compulsive” and “addictive” buying as different forms of “unregulated consumer behaviour”. Explanations of compulsive and addictive behaviour have been developed across a range of theoretical approaches including biological (compulsion as an illness or disease), psychological (personality or trait based explanations), or social (social/cultural explanations) ( Hirschman, 1992 ). Compulsive and addictive behaviours have been investigated in relation to consumption which includes both the purchase and use of goods and services ( Hirschman, 1992 ). “Compulsive buying disorder” has been recognised and has been estimated to have a prevalence of 5.8% in the US general adult population ( Black, 2007a ) and is associated with ways to relieve negative feelings via the reward of short-term gratification ( Christenson et al., 1994 ). As previously stated, the reward element may be derived beyond the actual act of purchase and include aspects of the buying process itself and/or post purchase attention and pleasure ( Davenport et al., 2012 ; Faber, Christenson, de Zwaan & Mitchell, 1995 ; O’Guinn & Faber, 1989 ). The comorbidity of compulsive buying with mood disorders such as depression, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, substance use disorder and personality disorders have been reported ( Lejoyeux & Weinstein, 2010 ).

O’Guinn and Faber (1989) point out that no single factor explains the etiology of compulsive buying behaviour. Rather they identify a range of factors including levels of arousal (e.g., low boredom or high excitement); release of anxiety or stress; sensation seeking; external environmental stimuli (e.g., the media) or relief from a negative affective state such as low self-esteem. Other identified factors include personality traits (e.g., impulsiveness, instant gratification) and demographics with compulsive shopping strongly linked to women ( Workman & Paper, 2010 ). Black ( 2007a , 2007b ) cites survey studies in which the prevalence rate of compulsive buying disorder amongst women is as high as 80% to 94% although there are suggestions that such findings may be an artefact of sampling methods. However, gender differences have been identified with men more likely to be addicted to drugs, gambling and sex ( Holden, 2001 ), whilst women are more likely demonstrate disorders in relation to eating and shopping (referred to as “mall disorders”) ( Davenport et al., 2012 ). Legendary female excessive shoppers have included two US First Ladies: Mary Todd Lincoln and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Imelda Marcos (Former First Lady of the Philippines) and Princess Diana in the UK ( Black, 1996 , 2007a ).

O’Guinn and Faber (1989) note that, our view of the severity and consequences of compulsive shopping is dictated by how the behaviour is perceived by society. They suggest that at one extreme level compulsive buying may be viewed by society as a “crime” whilst at another merely a “bad habit”. An obsessive shopper may be able to accommodate their behaviour within their everyday life and whilst it may appear worrying to others, it may not necessarily create negative consequences for the individual.

Lejoyeux & Weinstein (2010) suggest that similarities exist between compulsive buying and addiction in terms of the clinical characteristics. However, Sussman et al. (2010) provide a clear distinction between compulsive and addictive behaviour by identifying the characteristic differences. An addiction will typically involve a lot of time spent on the part of the individual thinking about engaging in the behaviour and is therefore typified by intense preoccupation that is beyond the need to release immediate anxiety as typically found in compulsive disorders. Rather addiction is characterised by loss of control or an inability to freely decide whether to engage in the behaviour or not. The individual is unable to predict when the behaviour may occur, how long it will last or when it will stop. Finally an addiction will have negative long-term effects for the individual that may include detrimental effects upon finances, social relationships, the ability to work effectively or to lead their lives appropriately. Edwards (1993) proposes that such shopping behaviours range across a continuum from normal behaviour where purchase is according to the individual’s needs and wants through to addictive with a severe lack of control. Given the recognised negative consequences of online shopping addiction for consumers, we focus upon this far end of the continuum in our work. Taking the Sussman et al. (2010) definition of addiction, we now move to discuss its application within online shopping.

DEVELOPMENT OF A CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF ONLINE SHOPPING ADDICTION

It has been recognised that a society is vulnerable to addiction at the stage when a new substance or behavioural activity is first introduced into the culture. For example, the introduction of alcohol into native cultures that have no prior exposure to the substance demonstrate higher prevalence of addiction to the substance compared to those in established societies ( Orford, 2006 ). Our exposure time to the Internet is approximately 15 years and therefore adaptation to online behaviour is still in its infancy and it can be argued consumers are vulnerable to its influence. New technologies have the ability to influence subjective experiences so powerfully as to make them potentially addictive activities ( Orford, 2006 ). The Internet is one such technology and there are several subtypes of Internet related problem behaviours that have emerged such as online sexual addiction, social media addiction, online gaming and gambling addictions that combine both pre-established addictions with Internet addiction ( Griffiths, 1995 ). It has been questioned whether Internet addictions actually do exist or whether the Internet is the medium through which pre-existing addictive behaviour is carried out. This view is proposed by authors such as Griffiths (2000) who suggests that technological addictions should be viewed as a subset of behavioural addictions which of themselves demonstrate the core elements of addiction. Therefore true Internet addictions may not be highly prevalent ( Widyanto & Griffiths, 2007 ).

The literature in relation to problematic online shopping behaviour is currently limited and most often discussed within the context of broader Internet dependency or addictions ( Chen et al., 2004 ). Sun and Wu (2011) link problematic online buying behaviour to addiction to the Internet itself. They conclude that emotional instability and materialism have positive effects upon Internet addiction, which in turn positively influences impulsive online buying. Materialism and impulsiveness have been linked to technology addiction for example in young people and cell-phone use ( Roberts & Pirog, 2012 ). La Rose and Eastin (2002) found evidence of unregulated online buying amongst college students and evidence for the role of poor self-regulation in influencing this behaviour. They propose that this irrational, lack of control, element of online shopping can be a stronger determinant of online shopping behaviour than rational, economic considerations.

Other studies have focused upon the consequences of OSA such as that by Lo and Harvey (2012) who look at the ways in which compulsive shoppers differ to normal shoppers in terms of their buying process and their emotional responses to the consequences of their buying. The study utilised an experimental design which involved the observation of online shoppers as they performed various shopping tasks such as searching, adding items to the shopping cart and payment. Data was captured both during the shopping process and following the experience which showed distinct differences in compulsive and non-compulsive shoppers. For example compulsive shoppers did not check product information in such detail and were less concerned about over-spending identified by credit card usage. The authors concluded that the compulsive shopper is addicted to the process of shopping itself, experiences cravings to shop but tends to ignore the consequences of satisfying such cravings.

Given the limited understanding of the predictors of OSA, we propose that insights will be found in both existing theories of addictive/compulsive buying behaviour and by identifying specific features of the online retail medium which may encourage OSA. The model therefore incorporates recognised predictors of addictive behaviours in general: low self-esteem, low self-regulation, negative emotional state and female gender as well as predictors specific to the online retail medium: enjoyment, social anonymity and cognitive overload. Figure 1 below presents our conceptual model of OSA and we discuss the theoretical support for the hypothesised relationships between OSA and the 7 proposed predictors.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is jba-03-083-g001.jpg

A conceptual model of online shopping addiction (OSA)

Low self-esteem

The effect of low self-esteem is consistently reported in terms of compulsive and addictive behaviour ( Davenport et al., 2012 ; Hirschman, 1992 ; O’Guinn & Faber, 1989 ). Compulsive buying is an attempt to relieve feelings of low self-esteem ( Jacobs, 1986 ). Low self-esteem is relieved by the reward or outcome of the repetitive behaviour. Davenport et al. (2012) point out that it may not be the goods purchased but involvement in the buying process that relieves anxiety and feelings of low self-esteem. We therefore hypothesise that individuals with low self-esteem will find the process of online shopping provides relief from such feelings and therefore this factor will have a direct effect upon OSA.

Low self-regulation

Difficulties with control are strongly linked to compulsive and addictive behaviour ( Baumeister, 2002 ; Hirschman, 1992 ; Workman & Paper, 2010 ). Baumeister (2002) defines self-control as the individual’s capacity to alter their own state or responses to stimuli and uses the term interchangeably with self-regulation. Self-regulation has been recognised within the consumer behaviour literature. Vohs and Faber (2003) view self-regulation as being managed by a limited set of resources that the individual draws on to control their responses. These resources include cognitions, emotions or behaviours. They propose that each act of self-control depletes the resources and therefore reduces the individual’s overall capacity for self-regulation. Sun and Wu (2011) recognise the relationship between Internet addiction and lack of self-control and suggest that a continuous exposure to the online environment that encourages lack of self-control depletes the individual’s resource capacity for self-regulation. La Rose and Eastin (2002) identify that whilst there are features of online retail websites that encourage self-regulation (e.g., shopping carts to contain products before purchase and therefore time to consider; search engine opportunities to search and evaluate information; or past purchase history to trigger awareness of buying behaviour) these were found to be outweighed by retail website features such as advertising pop-ups, timed discount offers, vivid interactive graphical displays of products, or ‘one click’ purchases, all of which encourage purchase and weaken self-regulation. In their study La Rose and Eastin (2002) found a direct relationship between deficient self-regulation and online shopping activity and we similarly include this effect within our conceptual model.

Negative emotional state

Emotion has been identified as a factor in the continued use of technology ( Oritz de Guinea & Markus, 2009 ). Baumeister (2002) suggests that at times of emotional distress an individual is more likely to loosen self-control and act in an impulsive way in order relieve such feelings. Shopping has been recognised to ease anxiety and stress and therefore a shopper in a negative emotional state is more likely to act impulsively and excessively ( Davenport et al., 2012 ). We hypothesise that the ease of access and instant gratification of the e-retail medium provides an ideal environment for reduction of negative emotional state. Therefore negative states are a driver of OSA.

Psychologically enjoyment has been identified as a hedonistic emotion which positively motivates physical activity and has been linked to website experience ( Lin, Gregor and Ew-ing, 2008 ). Davenport et al. (2012) identify “reward sensitivity” as an influence upon compulsive buying proposing that an individual who is highly sensitive to rewards will respond to enjoyable stimuli such as food or shopping. Hedonic motivations have been identified in relation to shopping ( Arnold & Reynolds, 2003 ). Enjoyment has been found to be a determinant of an individual’s likelihood to continue to shop ( Hart, Farrell, Stachow, Reed & Cadogan, 2007 ) and pleasure is identified as a rewarding aspect of compulsive buying behaviour ( Davenport et al., 2012 ). Similarly enjoyment has been identified as a motivator of online shopping ( Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2001 ). Lejoyeux and Weinstein ( 2010 , p. 249) report that positive feelings of pleasure or excitement (often referred to as “a high” or “a rush”) are associated with compulsive buying. We therefore incorporate this into our model and hypothesise that enjoyment is a key factor in the development of OSA.

Pratarelli and Browne (2002) provide evidence that certain addictions may vary by gender. There is consistent evidence that women are more likely to demonstrate compulsive and addictive buying behaviour ( Black 2007a ; Christenson et al., 1994 ; Davenport et al., 2012 ; McElroy, Phillips & Keck, 1994 ). This may be explained by the fact that in Western countries females are socialized and expected to do most of the household shopping. From an early age young females learn that shopping and buying are activities that can be used to feel better and therefore can be used to combat negative mood states ( Benson, 2008 ). Whilst excessive Internet usage has been found to be male dominated particularly in the area of gaming and gambling ( Mottram & Fleming, 2009 ), we hypothesise that the female gender variable is likely to be a stronger predictor of OSA than being male, in line with prior clinical findings.

Social anonymity

As stated, shopping is traditionally a social activity involving personal interaction with others (other shoppers and/or retail staff). Online shopping is (most often) solitary and a key feature is the social anonymity of the shopping environment. Lejoyeux and Weinstein (2010) suggest that compulsive buying may be prompted by the online retail environment because of the social anonymity that allows the shopper to keep their buying behaviour private from others, such as their family. Added to the effect of anonymity, Sun and Wu (2011) suggest that an appeal of online shopping is that the individual may feel less inhibited about their shopping when they are not visible to others. Disinhibition has been identified as a distinctive feature of Internet behaviour encouraging many forms of inappropriate behaviour such as intimate self-disclosure on social media sites; “flaming” or negative comment about others; through to activities such as bullying or the use of pornography sites ( Joinson, 2007 ). Such behaviours come about due to two factors. First, the lack of concern by the individual about self-presentation (how they appear to others) and second how others may judge them due to reduced social cues in the virtual environment ( Joinson, 2007 ). We hypothesise that the social anonymity of the online environment and subsequent disinhibi-tion encourages inappropriate excessive shopping behaviour due to the absence of the regulation of normal shopping environmental cues such as the response behaviours of other shoppers or retail staff.

Cognitive overload

Compulsive buying behaviour has been linked to arousal and the effect of the external environment ( O’Guinn & Faber, 1989 ). Online retail sites satisfy the need for arousal among shoppers by the dynamic nature of the medium. This includes devices such as graphic displays, interactive dialogue and “pop ups” providing product information or notification of special offers. Such frequent and constantly changing stimuli provide repeated stimulation and temptation potentially creating cognitive overload for the individual. Increases in the cognitive load of the individual in one area can overwhelm self-control in another leading to lack of willpower. As discussed earlier, self-control is managed by a limited set of resources and authors such as Muraven & Baumeister (2000) have applied a ‘limited resources model’ to explain the concept of self-control. They propose that the resource needed for an individual to exert self-control is limited and the resource is partially depleted by the act of self-control itself. Increased cognitive load, which similarly depletes resources, has been found to make temptation harder to resist ( Fudenberg & Levine, 2006 ). We therefore hypothesise that the cognitive stimulation of online retail websites will increase cognitive load leading to lack of self-control and so have an effect upon OSA.

The dependent variable: Online shopping addiction

Our start point to identify the components of OSA and therefore definition criteria is to look at the literature regarding technological addiction. The Internet as a form of technology addiction is now well researched ( Chen et al., 2004 ; Leung, 2004 ) particularly in the areas of online gambling and gaming ( Griffiths, 2009 ; Wood & Griffiths, 2007 ). Griffiths ( 1995 , p. 15) first introduced the term “technology addictions” which he defines as “non-chemical (behavioural) addictions which involve human-machine interaction”. As stated, such addictions may combine with other categories of addictive behaviour such as gambling, sex or shopping. In developing a definition of technological addiction, Griffiths ( 1995 ) cites Marlatt, Baer, Donovan and Kivlahan (1988) in terms of defining addictive behaviour as characterised by loss of control, an inability to withdraw from the behaviour despite attempts, and long-term negative consequences. Griffith (1995) draws on the clinical criteria for established addictions (DSM4) to develop an understanding of technological addiction and development of criteria. The application to Internet behaviour is supported by subsequent studies ( Meerkerk, Van den Eijnden, Vermulst & Garrelsen, 2009 ) and we similarly propose that the Griffiths technology addiction criteria be adapted to online shopping to measure the components of OSA.

CONCLUSIONS

This article reviews literature on compulsive and addictive shopping and the emergent literature in relation to problematic online shopping behaviour. The contribution of this review is that it fills a gap in the literature in terms of the identification of potential predictors of online shopping addiction. Seven predictor variables are proposed to influence the likely development of OSA which includes: low self-esteem, low self-regulation; negative emotion, enjoyment, gender, social anonymity and cognitive overload . The dependent variable of OSA is predicted to have six component features that include: salience, euphoria, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, conflict and relapse. Development of the model helps both clinicians and retailers to recognise the pre-conditions for the development of addictive consumer behaviour when shopping online. Whilst not all of the proposed predictors of OSA are within the control of e-retailers, the research seeks to shed light on an important aspect of consumer retail behaviour. Further research is called for in order to development measurement scales and testing of the proposed conceptual model.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support given to the authors by Professor Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University since their initial interest in the subject of online shopping addiction.

Funding sources

No financial support was received for this study.

Authors’ contributions

The literature review and early development of the conceptual model was undertaken by AD under the supervision of SR as part of the completion of his research dissertation for his MBA programme at Henley Business School. The subsequent development of the conceptual model and preparation of the journal article was undertaken jointly by both authors. Both authors had full access to the literature and its analysis throughout the study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 1985. [ Google Scholar ]
American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 4th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 2000. [ Google Scholar ]
Arnold M. J., Reynolds K. E. Hedonic shopping motivations. Journal of Retailing. 2003; 79 :77–95. [ Google Scholar ]
Baumeister R. F. Yielding to temptation: Self-control failure, impulsive purchasing, and consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Research. 2002; 28 :670–676. [ Google Scholar ]
Benson A. L. I shop, Therefore I am: Compulsive buying and the search for self (Oniomania, ergo sum: The complete guide to compulsive buying disorders) Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson; 2000. [ Google Scholar ]
Benson A. L. To buy or not to buy. Boston, MA: Trumpeter; 2008. [ Google Scholar ]
Black D. W. Compulsive buying: A review. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 1996; 57 (8):50–55. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Black D. W. Compulsive buying disorder: A review of the evidence. The International Journal of Neuropsychiatric Medicine. 2007a; 12 (2):124–132. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Black D. W. A review of compulsive buying disorder. World Psychiatry. 2007b; 6 :14–18. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
The Business Dictionary: http://www.businessdictionary.com/def-inition/shopping.html . Accessed: November 15, 2012.
Chen K., Tarn J. M., Han B. T. Internet dependency: Its impact on online behavioural patterns in e-commerce. Human Systems Management. 2004; 23 :49–58. [ Google Scholar ]
Cheung C. M. K., Chan G. W. W., Limayem M. A critical review of online consumer behavior: Empirical research. Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations. 2005; 3 (4):1–19. [ Google Scholar ]
Christenson G. A., Faber R. J., de Zwaan M., Raymond N. C., Specker S. M., Eckern M. D. Compulsive buying: Descriptive characteristics and psychiatric co-morbidity. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 1994; 55 :1–35. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Davenport K., Houston J. E., Griffiths M. D. Excessive eating and compulsive buying behaviours in women: An empirical pilot study examining reward sensitivity, anxiety, impulsivity, self-esteem and social desirability. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. 2012; 10 (4):474–489. [ Google Scholar ]
Edwards E. A. Development of a new scale for measuring compulsive buying behaviour. Financial Counselling and Planning. 1993; 4 :67–84. [ Google Scholar ]
Faber R. J., O’Guinn T. C., Krych R. Compulsive consumption. In: Wallendorf M., Anderson P., editors. Advances in Consumer Research. Vol. 14. Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research; 1987. pp. 132–135. [ Google Scholar ]
Faber R. J., Christenson G. A., de Zwaan M., Mitchell J. Two forms of compulsive consumption: Comorbidity of compulsive buying and binge. The Journal of Consumer Research. 1995; 22 (3):296–304. [ Google Scholar ]
Fudenberg D., Levine D. K. A dual-self model of impulse control. The American Economic Review. 2006; 96 (5):1449–1476. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Gefen D. TAM or just plain habit: A look at experienced online shoppers. Journal of End User Computing. 2003; 15 (3):1–13. [ Google Scholar ]
Griffiths M. Technological addictions. Clinical Psychology Forum, 1995 Feb;:14–19. [ Google Scholar ]
Griffiths M. Does Internet and computer “addiction” exist? Some case study evidence. CyberPsychology & Behavior. 2000; 3 (2):211–218. [ Google Scholar ]
Griffiths M. The use of online methodologies in data collection for gambling and gaming addictions. International Journal of Mental Health Addiction. 2009 doi:10.1007/s11469-009-9209-1. [ Google Scholar ]
Hart C., Farrell A. M., Stachow G., Reed G., Cadogan J. W. Enjoyment of the shopping experience: Impact on customers’ repatronage intentions and gender influence. The Services Industry Journal. 2007; 27 (5):583–604. [ Google Scholar ]
Hirschman E. C. The consciousness of addiction: Toward a general theory of compulsive consumption. Journal of Consumer Research. 1992; 19 :155–179. [ Google Scholar ]
Hirschman E. C., Holbrook M. B. Hedonic consumption: Emerging concepts, methods and propositions. Journal of Marketing. 1982 Summer; 48 :92–101. [ Google Scholar ]
Holden C. Behavioural addictions: Do they exist? Science. 2001; 294 :980–982. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Jacobs D. F. A general theory of addictions: A new theoretical model. Journal of Gambling Behavior. 1986 Spring-Summer; 2 :15–31. [ Google Scholar ]
Joinson A. N. Disinhibition and the Internet. In: Gackenbach J., editor. Psychology and the Internet. Burlington, MA: Elsevier; 2007. [ Google Scholar ]
Langrehr F. W. Retail shopping mall semiotics and hedonic consumption. Advances in Consumer Research. 1991; 18 :428–433. [ Google Scholar ]
La Rose R., Eastin M. S. Is online buying out of control? Electronic commerce and consumer self-regulation. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media. 2002; 46 (4):549–564. [ Google Scholar ]
Lejoyeux M., Weinstein A. Compulsive buying. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. 2010; 36 :248–253. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Leung L. Net-generation attributes and seductive properties of the Internet as predictors of online activities and Internet addiction. CyberPsychology & Behavior. 2004; 7 (3):333–348. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Lin A., Gregor S., Ewing M. Developing a scale to measure the enjoyment of web experiences. Journal of Interactive Marketing. 2008; 22 (4):40–57. [ Google Scholar ]
Lo H-Y., Harvey N. Effects of shopping addiction on consumer decision-making: Web-based studies in real time. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. 2012; 1 (4):162–170. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Marlatt G. A., Baer J. S., Donovan D. M., Kivlahan D. R. Addictive behaviors: Etiology and treatment. Annual Review of Psychology. 1988; 39 :223–252. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
McElroy S. L., Phillips K. A., Keck P. E. Obsessive compulsive spectrum disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 1994; 55 (10):33–51. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Meerkerk G. J., Van den Eijnden R. J. J. M., Vermulst A. A., Garrelsen H. F. L. The Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS): Some psychometric properties. CyberPsychology & Behavior. 2009; 12 (1):1–6. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Mintel Report. Merry mobile and multichannel Christmas for UK retailers. 2013 Retrieved from http://www.mintel.com/ press-centre/retail-press-centre/merry-mobile-and-multichan-nel-christmas-for-uk-retailers . [ Google Scholar ]
Mottram A. J., Fleming M. J. Extraversion, impulsivity, and online group membership as predictors of problematic Internet use. CyberPsychology & Behavior. 2009; 12 (3):319–321. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Muraven M., Baumeister R. F. Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychological Bulletin. 2000; 126 (2):247–259. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
OECD. Internet Economy Outlook Report. 2012 Retrieved from http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/science-and-technology/oecd-internet-economy-outlook-2012_9789264086463-en . [ Google Scholar ]
O’Guinn T. C., Faber R. J. Compulsive buying: A phenomenological exploration. Journal of Consumer Research. 1989; 16 :147–157. [ Google Scholar ]
Orford J. Excessive appetites. 2nd ed. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons; 2006. [ Google Scholar ]
Oritz de Guinea A., Markus M. L. Why break the habit of a lifetime? Rethinking the roles of intention, habit, and emotion in continuing information technology use. MIS Quarterly. 2009; 33 (3):433–444. [ Google Scholar ]
Parsons P. 21st century addiction. FOCUS, Issue 221 (October) 2010 [ Google Scholar ]
Pratarelli M. E., Browne B. L. Confirmatory factor analysis of internet use and addiction. Cyberpsychology & Behavior. 2002; 5 (1):53–64. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Roberts J. A., Pirog S. F., III A preliminary investigation of materialism and impulsiveness as predictors of technological addictions among young adults. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. 2012; 2 (1):56–62. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Rose S., Samouel P. Internal psychological versus external market-driven determinants of the amount of consumer information search amongst experienced online shoppers. Journal of Marketing Management. 2009; 25 (1–2):171–190. [ Google Scholar ]
Sun T., Wu G. Trait predictors of online impulsive buying tendency: A hierarchical approach. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice. 2011; 19 (3):337–346. [ Google Scholar ]
Sussman S., Lisha N., Griffiths M. Prevalence of the addictions: A problem of the majority or the minority? Evaluation & the Health Professions. 2010; 34 (3):3–56. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
Ullman L. P., Krasner L. A psychological approach to abnormal behavior. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall; 1969. [ Google Scholar ]
Vohs K., Faber R. Self-regulation and impulsive spending patterns. Advances in Consumer Research. 2003; 30 :125–126. [ Google Scholar ]
Widyanto L., Griffiths M. Internet addiction: Does it really exist? (Revisited) In: Gackenbach J., editor. Psychology and the Internet. 2nd ed. Elsevier, MA: Academic Press; 2007. [ Google Scholar ]
Wolfinbarger M., Gilly M. C. Shopping online for freedom, control and fun. California Management Review. 2001; 43 (2):34–55. [ Google Scholar ]
Wood R. T. A., Griffiths M. D. Online data collection from gamblers: Methodological issues. International Journal of Mental Health Addiction. 2007; 5 :151–163. [ Google Scholar ]
Workman L., Paper D. Compulsive buying: A theoretical framework. The Journal of Business Inquiry. 2010; 9 (1):89–126. [ Google Scholar ]

A study on factors limiting online shopping behaviour of consumers

Rajagiri Management Journal

ISSN : 0972-9968

Article publication date: 4 March 2021

Issue publication date: 12 April 2021

This study aims to investigate consumer behaviour towards online shopping, which further examines various factors limiting consumers for online shopping behaviour. The purpose of the research was to find out the problems that consumers face during their shopping through online stores.

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative research method was adopted for this research in which a survey was conducted among the users of online shopping sites.

As per the results total six factors came out from the study that restrains consumers to buy from online sites – fear of bank transaction and faith, traditional shopping more convenient than online shopping, reputation and services provided, experience, insecurity and insufficient product information and lack of trust.

Research limitations/implications

This study is beneficial for e-tailers involved in e-commerce activities that may be customer-to-customer or customer-to-the business. Managerial implications are suggested for improving marketing strategies for generating consumer trust in online shopping.

Originality/value

In contrast to previous research, this study aims to focus on identifying those factors that restrict consumers from online shopping.

Online shopping

Daroch, B. , Nagrath, G. and Gupta, A. (2021), "A study on factors limiting online shopping behaviour of consumers", Rajagiri Management Journal , Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 39-52. https://doi.org/10.1108/RAMJ-07-2020-0038

Emerald Publishing Limited

Published in Rajagiri Management Journal . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

Today, people are living in the digital environment. Earlier, internet was used as the source for information sharing, but now life is somewhat impossible without it. Everything is linked with the World Wide Web, whether it is business, social interaction or shopping. Moreover, the changed lifestyle of individuals has changed their way of doing things from traditional to the digital way in which shopping is also being shifted to online shopping.

Online shopping is the process of purchasing goods directly from a seller without any intermediary, or it can be referred to as the activity of buying and selling goods over the internet. Online shopping deals provide the customer with a variety of products and services, wherein customers can compare them with deals of other intermediaries also and choose one of the best deals for them ( Sivanesan, 2017 ).

As per Statista-The Statistics Portal, the digital population worldwide as of April 2020 is almost 4.57 billion people who are active internet users, and 3.81 billion are social media users. In terms of internet usage, China, India and the USA are ahead of all other countries ( Clement, 2020 ).

The number of consumers buying online and the amount of time people spend online has risen ( Monsuwe et al. , 2004 ). It has become more popular among customers to buy online, as it is handier and time-saving ( Huseynov and Yildirim, 2016 ; Mittal, 2013 ). Convenience, fun and quickness are the prominent factors that have increased the consumer’s interest in online shopping ( Lennon et al. , 2008 ). Moreover, busy lifestyles and long working hours also make online shopping a convenient and time-saving solution over traditional shopping. Consumers have the comfort of shopping from home, reduced traveling time and cost and easy payment ( Akroush and Al-Debei, 2015 ). Furthermore, price comparisons can be easily done while shopping through online mode ( Aziz and Wahid, 2018 ; Martin et al. , 2015 ). According to another study, the main influencing factors for online shopping are availability, low prices, promotions, comparisons, customer service, user friendly, time and variety to choose from ( Jadhav and Khanna, 2016 ). Moreover, website design and features also encourage shoppers to shop on a particular website that excite them to make the purchase.

Online retailers have started giving plenty of offers that have increased the online traffic to much extent. Regularly online giants like Amazon, Flipkart, AliExpress, etc. are advertising huge discounts and offers that are luring a large number of customers to shop from their websites. Companies like Nykaa, MakeMyTrip, Snapdeal, Jabong, etc. are offering attractive promotional deals that are enticing the customers.

Despite so many advantages, some customers may feel online shopping risky and not trustworthy. The research proposed that there is a strong relationship between trust and loyalty, and most often, customers trust brands far more than a retailer selling that brand ( Bilgihan, 2016 ; Chaturvedi et al. , 2016 ). In the case of online shopping, there is no face-to-face interaction between seller and buyer, which makes it non-socialize, and the buyer is sometimes unable to develop the trust ( George et al. , 2015 ). Trust in the e-commerce retailer is crucial to convert potential customer to actual customer. However, the internet provides unlimited products and services, but along with those unlimited services, there is perceived risk in digital shopping such as mobile application shopping, catalogue or mail order ( Tsiakis, 2012 ; Forsythe et al. , 2006 ; Aziz and Wahid, 2018 ).

Literature review

A marketer has to look for different approaches to sell their products and in the current scenario, e-commerce has become the popular way of selling the goods. Whether it is durable or non-durable, everything is available from A to Z on websites. Some websites are specifically designed for specific product categories only, and some are selling everything.

The prominent factors like detailed information, comfort and relaxed shopping, less time consumption and easy price comparison influence consumers towards online shopping ( Agift et al. , 2014 ). Furthermore, factors like variety, quick service and discounted prices, feedback from previous customers make customers prefer online shopping over traditional shopping ( Jayasubramanian et al. , 2015 ). It is more preferred by youth, as during festival and holiday season online retailers give ample offers and discounts, which increases the online traffic to a great extent ( Karthikeyan, 2016 ). Moreover, services like free shipping, cash on delivery, exchange and returns are also luring customers towards online purchases.

More and more people are preferring online shopping over traditional shopping because of their ease and comfort. A customer may have both positive and negative experiences while using an online medium for their purchase. Some of the past studies have shown that although there are so many benefits still some customers do not prefer online as their basic medium of shopping.

While making online purchase, customers cannot see, touch, feel, smell or try the products that they want to purchase ( Katawetawaraks and Wang, 2011 ; Al-Debei et al. , 2015 ), due to which product is difficult to examine, and it becomes hard for customers to make purchase decision. In addition, some products are required to be tried like apparels and shoes, but in case of online shopping, it is not possible to examine and feel the goods and assess its quality before making a purchase due to which customers are hesitant to buy ( Katawetawaraks and Wang, 2011 ; Comegys et al. , 2009 ). Alam and Elaasi (2016) in their study found product quality is the main factor, which worries consumer to make online purchase. Moreover, some customers have reported fake products and imitated items in their delivered orders ( Jun and Jaafar, 2011 ). A low quality of merchandise never generates consumer trust on online vendor. A consumer’s lack of trust on the online vendor is the most common reason to avoid e-commerce transactions ( Lee and Turban, 2001 ). Fear of online theft and non-reliability is another reason to escape from online shopping ( Karthikeyan, 2016 ). Likewise, there is a risk of incorrect information on the website, which may lead to a wrong purchase, or in some cases, the information is incomplete for the customer to make a purchase decision ( Liu and Guo, 2008 ). Moreover, in some cases, the return and exchange policies are also not clear on the website. According to Wei et al. (2010) , the reliability and credibility of e-retailer have direct impact on consumer decision with regards to online shopping.

Limbu et al. (2011) revealed that when it comes to online retailers, some websites provide very little information about their companies and sellers, due to which consumers feel insecure to purchase from these sites. According to other research, consumers are hesitant, due to scams and feel anxious to share their personal information with online vendors ( Miyazaki and Fernandez, 2001 ; Limbu et al. , 2011 ). Online buyers expect websites to provide secure payment and maintain privacy. Consumers avoid online purchases because of the various risks involved with it and do not find internet shopping secured ( Cheung and Lee, 2003 ; George et al. , 2015 ; Banerjee et al. , 2010 ). Consumers perceive the internet as an unsecured channel to share their personal information like emails, phone and mailing address, debit card or credit card numbers, etc. because of the possibility of misuse of that information by other vendors or any other person ( Lim and Yazdanifard, 2014 ; Kumar, 2016 ; Alam and Yasin, 2010 ; Nazir et al. , 2012 ). Some sites make it vital and important to share personal details of shoppers before shopping, due to which people abandon their shopping carts (Yazdanifard and Godwin, 2011). About 75% of online shoppers leave their shopping carts before they make their final decision to purchase or sometimes just before making the payments ( Cho et al. , 2006 ; Gong et al. , 2013 ).

Moreover, some of the customers who have used online shopping confronted with issues like damaged products and fake deliveries, delivery problems or products not received ( Karthikeyan, 2016 ; Kuriachan, 2014 ). Sometimes consumers face problems while making the return or exchange the product that they have purchased from online vendors ( Liang and Lai, 2002 ), as some sites gave an option of picking from where it was delivered, but some online retailers do not give such services to consumer and consumer him/herself has to courier the product for return or exchange, which becomes inopportune. Furthermore, shoppers had also faced issues with unnecessary delays ( Muthumani et al. , 2017 ). Sometimes, slow websites, improper navigations or fear of viruses may drop the customer’s willingness to purchase from online stores ( Katawetawaraks and Wang, 2011 ). As per an empirical study done by Liang and Lai (2002) , design of the e-store or website navigation has an impact on the purchase decision of the consumer. An online shopping experience that a consumer may have and consumer skills that consumers may use while purchasing such as website knowledge, product knowledge or functioning of online shopping influences consumer behaviour ( Laudon and Traver, 2009 ).

From the various findings and viewpoints of the previous researchers, the present study identifies the complications online shoppers face during online transactions, as shown in Figure 1 . Consumers do not have faith, and there is lack of confidence on online retailers due to incomplete information on website related to product and service, which they wish to purchase. Buyers are hesitant due to fear of online theft of their personal and financial information, which makes them feel there will be insecure transaction and uncertain errors may occur while making online payment. Some shoppers are reluctant due to the little internet knowledge. Furthermore, as per the study done by Nikhashem et al. (2011), consumers unwilling to use internet for their shopping prefer traditional mode of shopping, as it gives roaming experience and involves outgoing activity.

Several studies have been conducted earlier that identify the factors influencing consumer towards online shopping but few have concluded the factors that restricts the consumers from online shopping. The current study is concerned with the factors that may lead to hesitation by the customer to purchase from e-retailers. This knowledge will be useful for online retailers to develop customer driven strategies and to add more value product and services and further will change their ways of promoting and advertising the goods and enhance services for customers.

Research methodology

This study aimed to find out the problems that are generally faced by a customer during online purchase and the relevant factors due to which customers do not prefer online shopping. Descriptive research design has been used for the study. Descriptive research studies are those that are concerned with describing the characteristics of a particular individual or group. This study targets the population drawn from customers who have purchased from online stores. Most of the respondents participated were post graduate students and and educators. The total population size was indefinite and the sample size used for the study was 158. A total of 170 questionnaires were distributed among various online users, out of which 12 questionnaires were received with incomplete responses and were excluded from the analysis. The respondents were selected based on the convenient sampling technique. The primary data were collected from Surveys with the help of self-administered questionnaires. The close-ended questionnaire was used for data collection so as to reduce the non-response rate and errors. The questionnaire consists of two different sections, in which the first section consists of the introductory questions that gives the details of socio-economic profile of the consumers as well as their behaviour towards usage of internet, time spent on the Web, shopping sites preferred while making the purchase, and the second section consist of the questions related to the research question. To investigate the factors restraining consumer purchase, five-point Likert scale with response ranges from “Strongly agree” to “Strongly disagree”, with following equivalencies, “strongly disagree” = 1, “disagree” = 2, “neutral” = 3, “agree” = 4 and “strongly agree” = 5 was used in the questionnaire with total of 28 items. After collecting the data, it was manually recorded on the Excel sheet. For analysis socio-economic profile descriptive statistics was used and factors analysis was performed on SPSS for factor reduction.

Data analysis and interpretation

The primary data collected from the questionnaires was completely quantified and analysed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20. This statistical program enables accuracy and makes it relatively easy to interpret data. A descriptive and inferential analysis was performed. Table 1 represents the results of socio-economic status of the respondents along with some introductory questions related to usage of internet, shopping sites used by the respondents, amount of money spent by the respondents and products mostly purchased through online shopping sites.

According to the results, most (68.4%) of the respondents were belonging to the age between 21 and 30 years followed by respondents who were below the age of 20 years (16.4%) and the elderly people above 50 were very few (2.6%) only. Most of the respondents who participated in the study were females (65.8)% who shop online as compared to males (34.2%). The respondents who participated in the study were students (71.5%), and some of them were private as well as government employees. As per the results, most (50.5%) of the people having income below INR15,000 per month who spend on e-commerce websites. The results also showed that most of the respondents (30.9%) spent less than 5 h per week on internet, but up to (30.3%) spend 6–10 h per week on internet either on online shopping or social media. Majority (97.5%) of them have shopped through online websites and had both positive and negative experiences, whereas 38% of the people shopped 2–5 times and 36.7% shopped more than ten times. Very few people (12%), shopped only once. Most of the respondents spent between INR1,000–INR5,000 for online shopping, and few have spent more than INR5,000 also.

As per the results, the most visited online shopping sites was amazon.com (71.5%), followed by flipkart.com (53.2%). Few respondents have also visited other e-commerce sites like eBay, makemytrip.com and myntra.com. Most (46.2%) of the time people purchase apparels followed by electronics and daily need items from the ecommerce platform. Some of the respondents have purchased books as well as cosmetics, and some were preferring online sites for travel tickets, movie tickets, hotel bookings and payments also.

Factor analysis

To explore the factors that restrict consumers from using e-commerce websites factor analysis was done, as shown in Table 3 . A total of 28 items were used to find out the factors that may restrain consumers to buy from online shopping sites, and the results were six factors. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure, as shown in Table 2 , in this study was 0.862 (>0.60), which states that values are adequate, and factor analysis can be proceeded. The Bartlett’s test of sphericity is related to the significance of the study and the significant value is 0.000 (<0.05) as shown in Table 2 .

The analysis produced six factors with eigenvalue more than 1, and factor loadings that exceeded 0.30. Moreover, reliability test of the scale was performed through Cronbach’s α test. The range of Cronbach’s α test came out to be between 0.747 and 0.825, as shown in Table 3 , which means ( α > 0.7) the high level of internal consistency of the items used in survey ( Table 4 ).

Factor 1 – The results revealed that the “fear of bank transaction and faith” was the most significant factor, with 29.431% of the total variance and higher eigenvalue, i.e. 8.241. The six statements loaded on Factor 1 highly correlate with each other. The analysis shows that some people do not prefer online shopping because they are scared to pay online through credit or debit cards, and they do not have faith over online vendors.

Factor 2 – “Traditional shopping is convenient than online shopping” has emerged as a second factor which explicates 9.958% of total variance. It has five statements and clearly specifies that most of the people prefer traditional shopping than online shopping because online shopping is complex and time-consuming.

Factor 3 – Third crucial factor emerged in the factor analysis was “reputation and service provided”. It was found that 7.013% of variations described for the factor. Five statements have been found on this factor, all of which were interlinked. It clearly depicts that people only buy from reputed online stores after comparing prices and who provide guarantee or warrantee on goods.

Factor 4 – “Experience” was another vital factor, with 4.640% of the total variance. It has three statements that clearly specifies that people do not go for online shopping due to lack of knowledge and their past experience was not good and some online stores do not provide EMI facilities.

Factor 5 – Fifth important factor arisen in the factor analysis was “Insecurity and Insufficient Product Information” with 4.251% of the total variance, and it has laden five statements, which were closely intertwined. This factor explored that online shopping is not secure as traditional shopping. The information of products provided on online stores is not sufficient to make the buying decision.

Factor 6 – “Lack of trust” occurred as the last factor of the study, which clarifies 3.920% of the total variance. It has four statements that clearly state that some people hesitate to give their personal information, as they believe online shopping is risky than traditional shopping. Without touching the product, people hesitate to shop from online stores.

The study aimed to determine the problems faced by consumers during online purchase. The result showed that most of the respondents have both positive and negative experience while shopping online. There were many problems or issues that consumer’s face while using e-commerce platform. Total six factors came out from the study that limits consumers to buy from online sites like fear of bank transaction and no faith, traditional shopping more convenient than online shopping, reputation and services provided, experience, insecurity and insufficient product information and lack of trust.

The research might be useful for the e-tailers to plan out future strategies so as to serve customer as per their needs and generate customer loyalty. As per the investigation done by Casalo et al. (2008) , there is strong relationship between reputation and satisfaction, which further is linked to customer loyalty. If the online retailer has built his brand name, or image of the company, the customer is more likely to prefer that retailer as compared to new entrant. The online retailer that seeks less information from customers are more preferred as compared to those require complete personal information ( Lawler, 2003 ).

Online retailers can adopt various strategies to persuade those who hesitate to shop online such that retailer need to find those negative aspects to solve the problems of customers so that non-online shopper or irregular online consumer may become regular customer. An online vendor has to pay attention to product quality, variety, design and brands they are offering. Firstly, the retailer must enhance product quality so as to generate consumer trust. For this, they can provide complete seller information and history of the seller, which will preferably enhance consumer trust towards that seller.

Furthermore, they can adopt marketing strategies such as user-friendly and secure website, which can enhance customers’ shopping experience and easy product search and proper navigation system on website. Moreover, complete product and service information such as feature and usage information, description and dimensions of items can help consumer decide which product to purchase. The experience can be enhanced by adding more pictures, product videos and three-dimensional (3D), images which will further help consumer in the decision-making process. Moreover, user-friendly payment systems like cash on deliveries, return and exchange facilities as per customer needs, fast and speedy deliveries, etc. ( Chaturvedi et al. , 2016 ; Muthumani et al. , 2017 ) will also enhance the probability of purchase from e-commerce platform. Customers are concerned about not sharing their financial details on any website ( Roman, 2007 ; Limbu et al. , 2011 ). Online retailers can ensure payment security by offering numerous payment options such as cash on delivery, delivery after inspection, Google Pay or Paytm or other payment gateways, etc. so as to increase consumer trust towards website, and customer will not hesitate for financial transaction during shopping. Customers can trust any website depending upon its privacy policy, so retailers can provide customers with transparent security policy, privacy policy and secure transaction server so that customers will not feel anxious while making online payments ( Pan and Zinkhan, 2006 ). Moreover, customers not only purchase basic goods from the online stores but also heed augmented level of goods. Therefore, if vendors can provide quick and necessary support, answer all their queries within 24-hour service availability, customers may find it convenient to buy from those websites ( Martin et al. , 2015 ). Sellers must ensure to provide products and services that are suitable for internet. Retailers can consider risk lessening strategies such as easy return and exchange policies to influence consumers ( Bianchi and Andrews, 2012 ). Furthermore, sellers can offer after-sales services as given by traditional shoppers to attract more customers and generate unique shopping experience.

Although nowadays, most of the vendors do give plenty of offers in form of discounts, gifts and cashbacks, but most of them are as per the needs of e-retailers and not customers. Beside this, trust needs to be generated in the customer’s mind, which can be done by modifying privacy and security policies. By adopting such practices, the marketer can generate customers’ interest towards online shopping.

Conceptual framework of the study

Socioeconomic status of respondents

KMO and Bartlett’s test

Cronbach’s α

Agift , A. , Rekha , V. and Nisha , C. ( 2014 ), “ Consumers attitude towards online shopping ”, Research Journal of Family, Community and Consumer Sciences , Vol. 2 No. 8 , pp. 4 - 7 , available at: www.isca.in/FAMILY_SCI/Archive/v2/i8/2.ISCA-RJFCCS-2014-017.php

Akroush , M.N. and Al-Debei , M.M. ( 2015 ), “ An integrated model of factors affecting consumer attitudes towards online shopping ”, Business Process Management Journal , Vol. 21 No. 6 , pp. 1353 - 1376 , doi: 10.1108/BPMJ-02-2015-0022 .

Alam , M.Z. and Elaasi , S. ( 2016 ), “ A study on consumer perception towards e-shopping in KSA ”, International Journal of Business and Management , Vol. 11 No. 7 , p. 202 .

Alam , S. and Yasin , N.M. ( 2010 ), “ What factors influence online brand trust: evidence from online tickets buyers in Malaysia ”, Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research , Vol. 5 No. 3 , pp. 78 - 89 , doi: 10.4067/S0718-18762010000300008 .

Al-Debei , M.M. , Akroush , M.N. and Ashouri , M.I. ( 2015 ), “ Consumer attitudes towards online shopping: the effects of trust, perceived benefits, and perceived web quality ”, Internet Research , Vol. 25 No. 5 , pp. 707 - 733 , doi: 10.1108/IntR-05-2014-0146 .

Aziz , N.N.A. and Wahid , N.A. ( 2018 ), “ Factors influencing online purchase intention among university students ”, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences , Vol. 8 No. 7 , pp. 702 - 717 , doi: 10.6007/IJARBSS/v8-i7/4413 .

Banerjee , N. , Dutta , A. and Dasgupta , T. ( 2010 ), “ A study on customers’ attitude towards online shopping-An Indian perspective ”, Indian Journal of Marketing , Vol. 40 No. 11 , pp. 36 - 42 .

Bianchi , C. and Andrews , L. ( 2012 ), “ Risk, trust, and consumer online purchasing behaviour: a Chilean perspective ”, International Marketing Review , Vol. 29 No. 3 , pp. 253 - 275 , doi: 10.1108/02651331211229750 .

Bilgihan , A. ( 2016 ), “ Gen Y customer loyalty in online shopping: an integrated model of trust, user experience and branding ”, Computers in Human Behavior , Vol. 61 , pp. 103 - 113 , doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2016.03.014 .

Casalo , L. , Flavián , C. and Guinalíu , M. ( 2008 ), “ The role of perceived usability, reputation, satisfaction and consumer familiarity on the website loyalty formation process ”, Computers in Human Behavior , Vol. 24 No. 2 , pp. 325 - 345 , doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2007.01.017 .

Chaturvedi , D. , Gupta , D. and Singh Hada , D. ( 2016 ), “ Perceived risk, trust and information seeking behavior as antecedents of online apparel buying behavior in India: an exploratory study in context of Rajasthan ”, International Review of Management and Marketing , Vol. 6 No. 4 , pp. 935 - 943 , doi: 10.2139/ssrn.3204971 .

Cheung , C.M. and Lee , M.K. ( 2003 ), “ An integrative model of consumer trust in internet shopping ”, ECIS 2003 Proceedings , p. 48 .

Cho , C.H. , Kang , J. and Cheon , H.J. ( 2006 ), “ Online shopping hesitation ”, Cyberpsychology and Behavior , Vol. 9 No. 3 , pp. 261 - 274 , doi: 10.1089/cpb.2006.9.261 .

Clement , J. ( 2020 ), “ Worldwide digital population as of April 2020 ”, available at: www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/ ( accessed 18 June 2020 ).

Comegys , C. , Hannula , M. and Váisánen , J. ( 2009 ), “ Effects of consumer trust and risk on online purchase decision-making: a comparison of Finnish and United States students ”, International Journal of Management , Vol. 26 No. 2 , available at: www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-1874986651/effects-of-consumer-trust-and-risk-on-online-purchase

Forsythe , S. , Liu , C. , Shannon , D. and Gardner , L.C. ( 2006 ), “ Development of a scale to measure the perceived benefits and risks of online shopping ”, Journal of Interactive Marketing , Vol. 20 No. 2 , pp. 55 - 75 , doi: 10.1002/dir.20061 .

George , O.J. , Ogunkoya , O.A. , Lasisi , J.O. and Elumah , L.O. ( 2015 ), “ Risk and trust in online shopping: experience from Nigeria ”, International Journal of African and Asian Studies , Vol. 11 , pp. 71 - 78 , available at: https://iiste.org/Journals/index.php/JAAS/article/view/23937

Gong , W. , Stump , R.L. and Maddox , L.M. ( 2013 ), “ Factors influencing consumers’ online shopping in China ”, Journal of Asia Business Studies , Vol. 7 No. 3 , pp. 214 - 230 , doi: 10.1108/JABS-02-2013-0006 .

Huseynov , F. and Yildirim , S.O. ( 2016 ), “ Internet users’ attitudes toward business-to-consumer online shopping: a survey ”, Information Development , Vol. 32 No. 3 , pp. 452 - 465 , doi: 10.1177/0266666914554812 .

Jadhav , V. and Khanna , M. ( 2016 ), “ Factors influencing online buying behavior of college students: a qualitative analysis ”, The Qualitative Report , Vol. 21 No. 1 , pp. 1 - 15 , available at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol21/iss1/1

Jayasubramanian , P. , Sivasakthi , D. and Ananthi , P.K. ( 2015 ), “ A study on customer satisfaction towards online shopping ”, International Journal of Applied Research , Vol. 1 No. 8 , pp. 489 - 495 , available at: www.academia.edu/download/54009715/1-7-136.pdf

Jun , G. and Jaafar , N.I. ( 2011 ), “ A study on consumers’ attitude towards online shopping in China ”, International Journal of Business and Social Science , Vol. 2 No. 22 , pp. 122 - 132 .

Karthikeyan ( 2016 ), “ Problems faced by online customers ”, International Journal of Current Research and Modern Education (IJCRME) , Vol. 1 No. 1 , pp. 166 - 169 , available at: http://ijcrme.rdmodernresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/23.pdf

Katawetawaraks , C. and Wang , C.L. ( 2011 ), “ Online shopper behavior: influences of online shopping decision ”, Asian Journal of Business Research , Vol. 1 No. 2 , pp. 66 - 74 , available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2345198

Kumar , M. ( 2016 ), “ Consumer behavior and satisfaction in e-commerce: a comparative study based on online shopping of some electronic gadgets ”, International Journal of Research in Commerce and Management , Vol. 7 No. 7 , pp. 62 - 67 , available at: https://ijrcm.org.in/article_info.php?article_id=6785

Kuriachan , J.K. ( 2014 ), “ Online shopping problems and solutions ”, New Media and Mass Communication , Vol. 23 No. 1 , pp. 1 - 4 , available at: www.academia.edu/download/34229456/Online_shopping_problems_and_solutions

Laudon , K.C. and Traver , C.G. ( 2009 ), E-Commerce Business. Technology. Society , 5th ed ., Prentice Hall .

Lawler , J.P. ( 2003 ), “ Customer loyalty and privacy on the web ”, Journal of Internet Commerce , Vol. 2 No. 1 , pp. 89 - 105 , doi: 10.1300/J179v02n01_07 .

Lee , M.K. and Turban , E. ( 2001 ), “ A trust model for consumer internet shopping ”, International Journal of Electronic Commerce , Vol. 6 No. 1 , pp. 75 - 91 , doi: 10.1080/10864415.2001.11044227 .

Lennon , S.J. , et al. ( 2008 ), “ Rural consumers’ online shopping for food and fiber products as a form of outshopping ”, Clothing and Textiles Research Journal , Vol. 27 No. 1 , pp. 3 - 30 , doi: 10.1177/0887302X07313625 .

Liang , T.P. and Lai , H.J. ( 2002 ), “ Effect of store design on consumer purchases: an empirical study of on-line bookstores ”, Information and Management , Vol. 39 No. 6 , pp. 431 - 444 , doi: 10.1016/S0378-7206(01)00129-X .

Lim , P.L. and Yazdanifard , R. ( 2014 ), “ Does gender play a role in online consumer behavior? ”, Global Journal of Management and Business Research , Vol. 14 No. 7 , pp. 48 - 56 , available at: https://journalofbusiness.org/index.php/GJMBR/article/view/1570

Limbu , Y.B. , Wolf , M. and Lunsford , D.L. ( 2011 ), “ Consumers’ perceptions of online ethics and its effects on satisfaction and loyalty ”, Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing , Vol. 5 No. 1 , pp. 71 - 89 , doi: 10.1108/17505931111121534 .

Liu , C. and Guo , Y. ( 2008 ), “ Validating the end-user computing satisfaction instrument for online shopping systems ”, Journal of Organizational and End User Computing , Vol. 20 No. 4 , pp. 74 - 96 , available at: www.igi-global.com/article/journal-organizational-end-user-computing/3849

Martin , J. , Mortimer , G. and Andrews , L. ( 2015 ), “ Re-examining online customer experience to include purchase frequency and perceived risk ”, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services , Vol. 25 , pp. 81 - 95 , doi: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2015.03.008 .

Mittal , A. ( 2013 ), “ E-commerce: it’s impact on consumer behavior ”, Global Journal of Management and Business Studies , Vol. 3 No. 2 , pp. 131 - 138 , available at: www.ripublication.com/gjmbs_spl/gjmbsv3n2spl_09.pdf

Miyazaki , A.D. and Fernandez , A. ( 2001 ), “ Consumer perceptions of privacy and security risks for online shopping ”, Journal of Consumer Affairs , Vol. 35 No. 1 , pp. 27 - 44 , doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6606.2001.tb00101.x .

Monsuwe , T.P.Y. , Dellaert , B.G.C. and Ruyter , K.D. ( 2004 ), “ What drives consumers to shop online? A literature review ”, International Journal of Service Industry Management , Vol. 15 No. 1 , pp. 102 - 121 , doi: 10.1108/09564230410523358 .

Muthumani , A. , Lavanya , V. and Mahalakshmi , R. ( 2017 ), “ Problems faced by customers on online shopping in Virudhunagar district ”, International Journal of Science Technology and Management (IJSTM) , Vol. 6 No. 2 , pp. 152 - 159 , available at: www.ijstm.com/images/short_pdf/1486214600_S184_IJSTM.pdf .

Nazir , S. , Tayyab , A. , Sajid , A. , Ur Rashid , H. and Javed , I. ( 2012 ), “ How online shopping is affecting consumers buying behavior in Pakistan? ”, International Journal of Computer Science Issues (IJCSI) , Vol. 9 No. 3 , p. 486 .

Nikhashem , S.R. , Yasmin , F. , Haque , A. and Khatibi , A. ( 2011 ), “ Study on customer perception towards online-ticketing in Malaysia ”, In Proceedings For 2011 International Research Conference and Colloquium , Vol. 1 , No. 1 , pp. 320 - 338 .

Pan , Y. and Zinkhan , G.M. ( 2006 ), “ Exploring the impact of online privacy disclosures on consumer trust ”, Journal of Retailing , Vol. 82 No. 4 , pp. 331 - 338 , doi: 10.1016/j.jretai.2006.08.006 .

Roman , S. ( 2007 ), “ The ethics of online retailing: a scale development and validation from the consumers’ perspective ”, Journal of Business Ethics , Vol. 72 No. 2 , pp. 131 - 148 , doi: 10.1007/s10551-006-9161-y .

Sivanesan ( 2017 ), “ A study on problems faced by customers in online shopping with special reference to Kanyakumari district ”, International Journal of Research in Management and Business Studies , Vol. 4 No. 3 , pp. 22 - 25 , available at: http://ijrmbs.com/vol4issue3SPL1/sivanesan.pdf

Tsiakis , T. ( 2012 ), “ Consumers’ issues and concerns of perceived risk of information security in online framework. The marketing strategies ”, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences , Vol. 62 No. 24 , pp. 1265 - 1270 , doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.216 .

Wei , L.H. , Osman , M.A. , Zakaria , N. and Bo , T. ( 2010 ), “ Adoption of e-commerce online shopping in Malaysia ”, In 2010 IEEE 7th International Conference on E-Business Engineering , IEEE , pp. 140 - 143 .

Yazdanifard , R. and Godwin , N.W. ( 2011 ), “ Challenges faced by customers: Highlighting E-shopping problems ”, Paper presented at international Conference on Economics, Business and Marketing Management (CEBMM 2011) , Shanghai, China , available at: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Assc_Prof_Dr_Rashad_Yazdanifard/publication/268507745_Challenges_faced_by_customers_Highlighting_E-shopping_problems/links/546d4ade0cf26e95bc3cb0a1/Challenges-faced-by-customers-Highlighting-E-shopping-problems.pdf ( accessed 20 March 2020 ).

Corresponding author

Related articles, we’re listening — tell us what you think, something didn’t work….

Report bugs here

All feedback is valuable

Please share your general feedback

Join us on our journey

Platform update page.

Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates

Questions & More Information

Answers to the most commonly asked questions here

IMAGES

Case study for online shopping by harshal
Pros and Cons of Online Shopping Essay
Benefits Of Online Shopping Process And Opinion Essay (600 Words
The Main Difference Between Online & Offline Shopping by Patrick
(PDF) A Study on Online Shopping Experience and Customer Satisfaction
Advantages of online shopping and its disadvantages

VIDEO

Case Study
Case Study Online Education Ivey University 2
[CASE STUDY]: Online Selling Labs
#4 FOLKS
10

COMMENTS

Ecommerce: 10 mini case studies of successful marketing for online shopping
Mini Case Study #6: Facebook Live show quadruples online orders for gourmet deli and marketplace. Big Bottom Market is a gourmet deli and marketplace in the heart of Sonoma Wine Country. In addition to its retail presence, the team also manages an Etsy Shop where they sell Big Bottom Market-branded products and the work of local artisans.
Full article: The impact of online shopping attributes on customer
With a lack of studies that examine the relationship between the online shopping attributes that influence the behaviour of online consumers in emerging market economies such as South Africa, a clear understanding of e-commerce marketing strategies for converting Internet consumers into loyal online store shoppers is needed. This study examined ...
The 24 Best eCommerce Retail Case Studies
Retail case study #3: Sainsbury's. Industry : Grocery stores. Why worth reading: Omnichannel success amidst pandemic challenges: With the fastest growth in online shopping among major retailers, the study illustrates how Sainsbury's adapted and thrived during unprecedented times.
Impact of Online Shopping on Consumer Buying Behaviour: a Case Study of
Email: [email protected]. The growth and spread of internet with an extraordinary pace over the last few decades has resulted in. emergence of online purchasing of products and services. This ...
How E-Commerce Fits into Retail's Post-Pandemic Future
HBR Learning's online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Digital Intelligence . Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses ...
Understanding the impact of online customers' shopping experience on
1. Introduction. Online shopping is a common, globally found activity (Erjavec and Manfreda, 2021; Shao et al., 2022).In 2020, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to 4.28 trillion United States (U.S.) dollars and this is projected to grow to 5.4 trillion U.S. dollars in 2022 (Coppola, 2021).Within this vast market, customers will often make spontaneous, unplanned, unreflective and ...
A Study of Behavior of Consumers Towards Online Shopping- A Case Study
Online shopping is rapidly growing e-commerce area. Online shopping are available 24 hours a day and almost maximum customers have an internet access both at work places and at also home. ... Ashraf and Rather, Ashiq Hussain, A Study of Behavior of Consumers Towards Online Shopping- A Case Study in Gwalior City (January 6, 2019). Proceedings of ...
Determinants of consumer's online shopping intention during COVID-19
This paper aims to determine the factors that influence the consumer's online shopping intention in the current pandemic context (COVID-19). For this purpose, a conceptual model has been developed by introducing the constructs "attitude," "perceived utility," "intention" as well as the variable "perceived risk of contagion.".
The impact of COVID-19 on the evolution of online retail: The pandemic
First, as demonstrated in Table 1, there is a plethora of mostly anecdotal, non-empirically-based evidence that during the pandemic (and beside the pandemic itself) two major factors, i.e., government restrictions and consumer behavior changes, drove a significant initial surge in online shopping. Second, extant studies failed to offer insights ...
Evaluating the impact of social media on online shopping behavior
As illustrated in Table 1, the study used four constructs of social media to examine online shopping behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic.Live streaming factors include social sharing, hedonic consumption, cognitive assimilation, and impulsive consumption. The celebrity endorsement factor includes the number of shares, authenticity, positive sentiments, and recognizable celebrity.
Consumer buying behavior towards online shopping: An empirical study on
Earlier studies showed that unlike brick and mortar shopping behavior, online shopping behavior is influenced by net connectivity, website esthetics (Constantinides, Citation 2004), security, customers' experience, age and learning curve, etc. Studying these unique characteristics of online shopping and consumer behavior of online shoppers ...
The Best Ecommerce Case Studies (63+ Success Examples)
The Best ecommerce Case Studies and Business Success Stories. 1. How Mellow Made $200,000+ In Preorder Sales In Less Than A Month. Image: About The Chef. ‍. Mellow is a company that makes a magical kitchen robot that syncs with your smartphone to cook for you at your convenience.
14 Ecommerce Case Studies to Inspire You
14 Ecommerce Case Studies to Inspire You. January 29, 2024 by Nikolett Lorincz. We've spent hundreds of hours analyzing the world's most successful DTC companies, including Sephora, Dollar Shave Club, Casper, Warby Parker, and Allbirds, to create ecommerce case studies you can use as inspiration for your own online store.
19 Ecommerce Case Studies [2023 Edition]
Here are some eCommerce studies you need to steal from: How to improve Conversion: Envelopes.com achieve 40%. How to improve Communication: Budapester increased mobile conversion by 29%. Make small changes: Edible Arrangements increases same-day sales by 8%. Make product benefits clear: Amerisleep increased checkouts by 13.9%.
PDF What Make Your Customers Satisfy? a Case Study of Online Shopping
This study selected three main factors that affect customer satisfaction: service quality, information quality, and network security, and analyzes the relationship between each element. The results showed that network security quality is an essential factor affecting consumers' shopping.
(PDF) Study of Effectiveness of Online Shopping
The main objective of this study is to analyze factors affecting online shopping behavior of consumers that might be one of the most important issues of e-commerce and marketing field. Content may ...
Towards an understanding of Internet-based problem shopping behaviour
The study utilised an experimental design which involved the observation of online shoppers as they performed various shopping tasks such as searching, adding items to the shopping cart and payment. Data was captured both during the shopping process and following the experience which showed distinct differences in compulsive and non-compulsive ...
A study on factors limiting online shopping behaviour of consumers
As per the results total six factors came out from the study that restrains consumers to buy from online sites - fear of bank transaction and faith, traditional shopping more convenient than online shopping, reputation and services provided, experience, insecurity and insufficient product information and lack of trust.
(PDF) Online Shopping
The study shows that the buying decision making process of generation Y is mostly similar in the case of online and offline shopping. Keywords: Online shopping, Offline shopping, Decision-making ...
Case study: An 'ethical' online shopping platform
The Concept. Swiper is a streamlined method of shopping utilizing data-points, creating a curated feed of products and services for users. With the option to trade data for deals and fill in quick surveys for credit, users are able to choose the prices they want. While using a similar experience to online-dating platforms users can experience the sensation of window shopping from the safety ...
Case Study Of Online Shopping
About nearly 80% of the entire US population has shopped online; 50% have made more than one purchase. This equated to 198 million US shoppers in 2014 or about 78% of the entire US population according to Business Insider. This can be explained due to oft-mentioned notions that online shopping is convenient and a time-saver to most Americans ...
Design and Implementation of An Online Shopping System (A Case Study of
Learn how to design and implement an online shopping system for a mega shop in Kaduna, Nigeria, using e-commerce and web technologies. Download the PDF for free.
Case Study: How YOU Can Make $10K With a Pizza Oven E-store
Case Study 📚 How YOU Can Earn $4,393/Mo as a Web Design, Graphic Design, and SEO Service Provider. Ayman Houssary, Scott Max Apr 05, 2024.
(PDF) Online Shopping System (SRS Report)
The Online Shopping System Software requirements Specification (SRS) report outlines the essential specifications and requirements needed to develop a dependable and user friendly online shopping ...