Why Anxiety, Not Advertising, Shapes Loyalty

Behavioural science has long shown that humans are far more sensitive to uncertainty than to almost anything else. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman calls this uncertainty aversion: we’ll tolerate bad news better than no news at all.

This is why the Uber map was such a revelation. Before Uber, ordering a taxi meant uncertainty: will it arrive, how long will it take, is the driver lost? The app didn’t make cars arrive faster; it made waiting feel shorter by providing visibility. You could literally watch your ride inch closer. The anxiety evaporated.

Now swap “taxi” for “parcel.” According to Narvar, 83% of shoppers expect regular communication about their orders not just a dispatch email and a vague delivery window, but clear, branded updates. Another study found that 69% of customers are less likely to return if an order isn’t delivered within the promised time frame (Loqate, 2023). The stakes are high: post-purchase failures don’t just ruin the experience, they strangle lifetime value.

The Madness of Neglecting the Boring Bits

The irony is that most eCommerce brands wouldn’t dream of leaving their checkout flow to a third party. Yet they happily hand over the entire post-purchase experience to whichever courier happens to be cheapest.

Imagine if airlines did this. You book a flight with British Airways, but after paying you receive a series of emails from “Runway Logistics Ltd.” in Helvetica size 8, containing cryptic codes about your gate and take-off time. You’d lose faith instantly. And yet, this is how most retailers communicate delivery updates today.

The result? Confusion and crucially a failure to reinforce brand trust at the exact moment customers are most emotionally invested.

• Baymard Institute’s research shows that 18% of cart abandonments happen because delivery options weren’t clear or trustworthy.
• Shopify’s own data suggests that 72% of customers expect proactive updates about shipping and delivery.
• Narvar again reports that 56% of consumers would stop shopping with a retailer after two or three poor delivery experiences.

In other words, you can pour money into acquiring customers, but a sloppy post-purchase journey ensures you’ll just keep pouring.

Four Levers to Reduce Post-Purchase Anxiety

So, what should eCommerce leaders be doing differently? Here are four levers to transform that “anxious wait” into a loyalty-building moment:

1. Own Your Emails

   Courier-branded updates are a wasted opportunity. Branded delivery emails see up to 85% open rates. Compare that to the 20% you’re happy with in marketing. These are the most read messages you’ll ever send and most brands give them away to DPD or DHL.

2. Use SMS Where It Matters

   Not for every trivial update, but for the moments of maximum anxiety: “Your order is out for delivery” or “Your return has been received.” Gartner found that 90% of SMS messages are read within three minutes, which makes it the perfect medium for time-sensitive reassurance.

3. Give Real Choice, Not Illusion of Choice

   Faster isn’t always better. A Kellogg School study showed customers often prefer a slower but more convenient delivery slot over a marginally faster one. The goal isn’t speed at any cost; it’s control. Just as Uber lets you choose UberX or UberXL, eCommerce should empower customers to select delivery that fits their lives.

4. Fix Returns

   92% of customers say they’d buy again if returns were easy (Invesp, 2023). Conversely, a poor returns experience can cut repeat purchase intent in half. Yet too many brands still rely on email ping-pong and PDFs. A branded, self-service returns portal isn’t a luxury; it’s the cost of entry for loyalty.

The Perception vs Reality Gap

Here’s the interesting part. Most brands think they’re competing on product quality or acquisition efficiency. But in the mind of the customer, what they’re really competing on is anxiety management.

Your leggings may be softer, your ads wittier, but if your customer spends four days wondering whether their package is in a hedge, that’s the experience they remember.

As Rory Sutherland himself might put it: the goal of marketing is not only to change what people think about your brand, but how they feel when interacting with it. Delivery is one of the few moments where those feelings are most visceral.

Enter: The Brands Who Get It

Some companies have already cottoned on. Ever ordered from ASOS or Apple? Their tracking feels reassuring, branded, and crucially designed around the customer rather than the courier. You feel looked after, even if something goes wrong.

For most, though, post-purchase is still a black hole. Which is why there’s now such fertile ground for improvement.

The Voila Moment

At this point you might expect a pitch about building all this yourself. But the beauty is: you don’t have to. Platforms like Voila now exist to give eCommerce brands Uber-like control over their post-purchase journey.

• Branded tracking pages and emails that customers actually want to open.
• Real-time SMS alerts that cut anxiety at the key moments.
• Smart carrier management that balances cost, speed, and customer preference.
• A self-service returns portal that makes “I’ll shop again” the default response.

None of these are glamorous compared to splashy ad campaigns or influencer partnerships. But they’re quietly more powerful. Because if the research shows anything, it’s this: loyalty isn’t won at the checkout. It’s won in the wait.

And if Uber taught us anything, it’s that anxiety removed is value created.