February 11 2007

E-retailers need to help men spend £95 on flowers, or chocolate, or jewellery, or lingerie

Retailers are predicted to take £1.32 billion from consumers buying gifts for Valentine's Day this year, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC). E-retail will have a share of that spend with men more inclined than women to buy Valentine's Day gifts online.

Valentine's Day shoppers will spend an average of £95.80 with flowers being the most popular gift (bought by 58%), following by chocolate (43%) and jewellery (28%).

"Valentine's Day gives an important post-Christmas boost to retailers in several sectors," said BRC Director General Kevin Hawkins. However, as with Christmas shopping, some e-retailers could do more to help shoppers online. Hiding links to the checkout, hitting shoppers with hidden charges and not giving shoppers enough help in choosing and buying products were some of the biggest problems identified by a usability study conducted by Webcredible.

Of 20 retailers selling flowers, chocolate, lingerie or jewellery only six came up to Webcredible's basic standard of usability - Figleaves, Ernest Jones, Interflora, Goldmiths, Sainsbury's Flowers and Beaverbrooks Jewellery were the only e-retailers to score over 50 out of 100.

There are basic mistakes which some retailers are not addressing and presumably they are satisfied with the level of orders they are receiving through their e-commerce site. The Webcredible survey found that the most common mistakes were sites not giving shoppers help in choosing products, not having sort and filter options and not providing shoppers with sufficient help when an error is made.

Emma Herrod