Vividence just released a free Holiday Readiness research report for eretailers. I'm no statistician, but am aware nobody should take numbers based on a few hundred shoppers who volunteered for a study going to an undisclosed number of online shopping sites incredibly seriously. This is more qualitative than quantitative and may not apply to you. That said, here are some fun data bits according to this report:

- At 72%, shipping prices are the #1 shopping cart abandonment rate reason. Which means if you aren't running a free shipping offer, maybe you should test one; and, if you are running a free shipping offer, maybe you should make a bigger stink about it in your check-out process.

- 61% of shoppers surveyed abandoned carts because they were comparison shopping or browsing. As a recent heavy online shopper, my biggest disappointment was that carts didn't keep stuff if I left the site and then came back to it unless I was already a "registered member" and sometimes not even then. Hey isn't that what they invented cookies for? I love the fact that I can put stuff in my cart at Amazon, not even bother to register, leave, and then come back whenever and it's still there. It's spelled "convenience."

In fact this research showed that 45%-57% of online shoppers were putting stuff in their carts for later purchase. They treated the cart like a wish list, instead of using the wish list function on the site.

- Only 27% said the check out process is confusing. Maybe these are really Web-savvy shoppers, because based on personal experience this seems low to me, and lets way too many site designers off the hook!

- 82% said they were planning to shop online this Holiday season because of convenience. Just 65% said it was because of better prices. It's nice to know it's not just about the price tag anymore. However, makes me think about that shipping thing again because I bet shoppers don't include shipping into their price-is-not-critical thinking. Has anyone tried adding a factoid about the average "price" shipping is for consumers offline? You know-- gas, waiting in line, driving time... Maybe if you let shoppers know the real-life cost is equal then they would buy more.

- Most of the other "results" in this report are either 'duh" or kinda bogus (who isn't going to answer that they are concerned about safety? and the fact that more consumers plan to shop at click and mortar stores is probably more due to the fact that dot coms done gone, than consumer "self directedness.") however I did like the appendix showing screenshots of best practices from 800.com, Amazon.com, OldNavy.com and buynow.com.