69% of products bought for over £20 are bought online

Leading creative, retail and shopper marketing agency Savvy, has announced the findings of its latest multi-channel shopper research.

The research was carried out by an independent online research panel across a representative sample of 1,000 UK shoppers (focussed exclusively on non-food retailing). The findings highlight the increasing importance of digital retailing – which now influences a staggering 69% of purchases costing more than £20.

Alastair Lockhart, insight director at Savvy Marketing commented: “Increasingly media rich retailer websites, the rise of social media and more flexible delivery options are making online shopping more and more compelling for shoppers to use for both researching and buying products. Spending plans span both online and stores, as well as overlapping between them – shoppers have become channel-agnostic and are prolific in their use of each and all. Smartphones too play an important role, particularly amongst younger shoppers.”

Key statistics:

Top line:

• 53% of products bought for more than £20, are purchased online for home delivery, 39% in store and 8% ordered by online click and collect.

Number of sources:

• When making purchases over £20, shoppers currently use an average of 2.2 sources of research and as the cost of a product increases, so too does the number of sources they are likely to consult.

Key sources for research:

• Retailers themselves are the most popular source with 51% of shoppers using their sites for this purpose.
• 49% of shoppers visited stores for research purposes.
• 22% of shoppers used product manufacturers’ websites.
• Blogs/websites also play an important role for shoppers with 17% using them for research.
• Interestingly social media was used for research by just 6% of shoppers.

Rich media:

• Shoppers’ appetite for rich media content is growing. Indeed 90% of clothing shoppers want 360-degree images of products and 88% want the ability to zoom in on fabrics.
• 60% of clothing shoppers also want video content featuring the products (e.g. catwalks) – something that can increase dwell time and improve the propensity to buy.

Generation Y:

• These young shoppers (aged 18-34 years old) currently represent 31% of all UK shoppers.
• 90% of this generation have bought online in the past six months.
• 93% of these shoppers own a smartphone.

Concluding on the research findings Lockhart says: “The growth of digital naturally raises questions about the future of physical ‘high street’ retailing, but the bricks and mortar stores will always have an important role to play because they offer immediate gratification and because shopping remains a key leisure activity and a source of enjoyment for many. That said, the role of stores and high streets is evolving.

“As online increases retail capacity, stores need to fight harder to attract footfall and give shoppers clear reasons to visit above and beyond what a purely online experience can offer. The retail theatre has never been so important. Delivering that experience is expensive though so realistically can only work effectively if the investment is concentrated into fewer, larger stores. We’re already seeing this happening and it’s driving a concentration of retail centres. Major cities like London, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and Glasgow continue to attract investment, footfall and shopper spend, while secondary centres are often seeing footfall diminish. This trend is set to continue.”