- Almost half (45%) of customers have recently experienced tech issues or outages in-store
- A third (32%) left without purchasing and bought from a competitor when systems went down
- Two in three (66%) customers saying they wouldn’t go back to the same brand if it happened again
Convenience retailers must strengthen in-store connectivity or risk losing shoppers to rivals, new research warns.
The study of 1,500 consumers, commissioned by tech firm Evolve, which provides managed internet connectivity to multi-site brands including Home Bargains and ASDA, reveals that too many convenience operators are putting up with unreliable systems that are quietly pushing shoppers elsewhere.
Almost half (45 per cent) recently experienced problems with paying, ordering or using loyalty programmes due to tech outages according to the findings, with the majority of failures (49 per cent) hitting during the lunchtime rush when queues build and patience runs thin.
The research reveals that the impact on loyalty is stark. Almost a third (32 per cent) walked out and bought from a competitor when systems went down, according to the findings, with two in three (66 per cent) saying they wouldn’t go back to the same brand if it happened again.
“Convenience stores thrive on being quick and easy, and poor connectivity is a customer retention problem hiding in plain sight,” said Alan Stephenson-Brown, CEO at Evolve. "Too many operators are accepting unreliable systems and it's costing them sales and repeat visits.
"When a payment terminal goes down or a self-checkout freezes, shoppers don't wait. They leave and walk to the next store.
"The convenience retailers that will win are those investing in robust, reliable connectivity as core infrastructure rather than treating it as an afterthought."
The emotional response to tech failures helps explain the impact on customer loyalty. The findings reveal that 63 per cent of customers felt frustrated, while nearly a quarter (24 per cent) worried about being charged twice or had security concerns and one in five felt embarrassed (20 per cent) or angry (19 per cent).
People will wait up to five minutes for problems to be resolved before abandoning their purchase, according to the research, with almost one in five (17 per cent) unwilling to wait more than two minutes.
The most common problems shoppers encounter are slow payment processing (33 per cent), self-checkouts or ordering systems becoming unavailable (32 per cent), loyalty programmes and offers not being applied (27 per cent) and payment terminals that stop working entirely (25 per cent).