July 27 2007

Online retailers not responding to first contact

A third of online retailers in the UK and US are failing to communicate with new customers at the first point of contact, according to a study from email marketing company Silverpop.

The company found that 33% of the 150 companies surveyed failed to send a response following an opt-in request on their site. However, of those that did, UK companies performed better than their US counterparts sending a personalised response 60% of the time compared to 32% in the US.

Silverpop's bi-annual retail email marketing study examined the email marketing practices of 100 US retailers and 50 UK retailers and compared them to an identical study conducted in 2005 to establish how practices have evolved.

Though fewer UK retail sites request an email registration option on their home page, more UK sites inform browsers of multi-channel contact options - 80% compared to just 32% of US sites. US sites though include a white listing option more frequently - 60% of the time compared to 12% in the UK.

Overall the message is that email best practice is on the up both in the UK and US with simpler and more prominent opt-ins (up 9%), a higher number of email confirmations (+24%) and more incentives being offered to motivate subscriptions (+17%).

Mike Weston, MD of Silverpop EMEA commented: "I'm still staggered that so many companies don't send a confirmation email when someone opts in on their site - why wouldn't you do that, it's just basic good manners. Overall though it's encouraging to see that the application of email best practice is moving in the right direction."

Emma Herrod