How ghost webshops harm the customer experience resulting in missed business opportunities

The Unsettling Idea of Empty Brick-and-Mortar Stores

Picture this: you walk into a large, well-lit supermarket filled with shelves upon shelves of products—everything from fresh produce to home essentials. While the layout seems logical, something feels weirdly off. You quickly realize there's not a single employee around. No cashiers at the checkouts, no staff restocking shelves, and even the customer service desk is deserted. It's unsettling, as if you've stumbled into a quiet scene from a dystopian movie.

In such a store, you're left to your own devices. If you're searching for a specific item, you'll have to wander through the aisles yourself, perhaps even turning to Google on your phone for assistance. Want to inquire about product quality, alternative options, or availability? Sadly, there's no one to turn to. In frustration, you end up navigating this retail space entirely on your own or leaving altogether. 

The Digital Ghost Town: Navigating the Ghost Webshop

Thankfully, this isn’t a reality in most physical stores but it does mirror the experience many online shoppers face in what we call a "Ghost Webshop." You land on the homepage and be greeted by a wall of generic product images. 

Maybe there are some banners advertising sales or new arrivals, but there's no tailored guidance. No product suggestions based on your past behavior, no highlights of popular trends—basically, no 'digital customer service' to guide your journey.

Just like the employee-less brick-and-mortar store, Ghost Webshops leave you to aimlessly click through pages and pages of products. The glaring absence of AI-driven personalization tools—that is, our modern 'digital employees'—means there's no guiding hand to steer you toward the right products or to suggest complementary items that could enhance your shopping experience.

Related: Why personalization is so important for webshops

‍The Domino Effect of Lost Business Opportunities

But the consequences go beyond just frustrating individual customers. When you operate a Ghost Webshop, you're missing out on a host of business opportunities. Not only are you failing to establish customer loyalty and earn word-of-mouth recommendations, but you're also overlooking critical revenue-boosting strategies like up-selling and cross-selling.

These missed opportunities have a cascading effect. They don't just cost you immediate sales; they eat away at your long-term profitability. And in the crowded, competitive world of online retail, a Ghost Webshop is at risk of becoming just another indistinguishable webshop—easy to leave and even easier to forget.