Experian research on buying behaviours
Experian have released a whitepaper with research looking at consumer buying behaviours and multi-channel retail. Some interesting trends have emerged including the rise of the Handset Haggler, consumers who use their mobile in-store to check prices of goods elsewhere before purchasing. 10% of respondents do this according to the survey of 2000 UK consumers by ResearchNow.
Key trends include:
- 10% consumers use their mobile in-store to check prices of goods elsewhere before purchasing
- 5% of respondents have actively sought feedback on a purchase in store from Twitter or Facebook
- 4% of all those surveyed will make a purchase based on an offer sent to them based on location eg Facebook Places
Some other key findings:
- Consumers still love shopping offline – they find it practical, informative and fun. But online is having huge impact on offline shopping.
- Amazingly, 60% of food sales are influenced by online activity – this rises to 80-90% for other categories.
- 40% respondents used price comparison sites before purchasing electrical or white goods
- Consumers are increasingly seeking recommendations/ reviews. 20% of commodity-type purchases are influenced by reviews.
- 12% say their purchasing decisions influenced by voucher code sites and collaborative buying sites like Groupon
Retailers focused on a multi-channel approach are thriving. In 2008 the majority of online purchases were from pure-play online retailers (51%). Now they only account for 41%, while the proportion of online sales to multi-channel retailers has increased from 49% to 59%.