The accounting firm solicited opinions last fall from 7,700 people with Internet access in 12 countries, and it interviewed 74 online retailers. The ability to return merchandise to a store, rather than pay to ship it back, played a big part in their success, Neimark-Heymann said.
Retailers think that customers come to their sites for convenience, trust and name recognition.
The shoppers listed shipping costs as the No. 1 reason for abandoning their virtual shopping carts. In the United States, a third of the retailers surveyed said they made money on shipping charges. Dodgeville-based Lands' End sets shipping rates to break even rather than make money, said spokeswoman Andrea Stevenson. Because of the high volume, the shipper has employees working at the Lands' End warehouse. The accounting firm's report suggested that the conventional method of calculating shipping charges defies logic.