UK consumers turning away from the high street
An online study carried out in the UK underlines the continued growth in online shopping,
24% of the consumers on the survey said they do not plan to use the high street for Christmas shopping during the festive season, instead electing to shop online and in other ways.
The challenge of delivering great user experiences to consumers looms large for retailers as the survey shows, only 29% of respondents expect a mobile phone to be as fast as a desktop computer when shopping online, and a mere 11% expect it to be faster.
The YouGov online research asked respondents to name the different methods they have used or plan to use for Christmas shopping: 25% are not planning to visit any physical stores this year but shop online using their desktop (25%), laptop (43%), tablet (20%) or smartphone (16%). Only 2% expect to conduct any Christmas shopping over the telephone.
When asked about abandoning unresponsive websites those aged between 25–34 were most intolerant of sites that were slow to load or unresponsive to button presses. The difference between genders was marginal, with men marginally more impatient.
Additional findings from the online YouGov survey include:
- 86% of consumers will shop online over the festive period rather than head to the high street.
- 43% of respondents say they will do most online shopping between 1st and 25th December.
- 28% said that they will have done most of their online shopping in November, with 32% of women stating this compared with 23% of men.
- Concerns about cybercrime rise broadly with age and 77% of respondents aged 55+ are likely to stop using an online service or retailer they had seen media reports stating a site had been affected by cybercrime. 65% of respondents, in general, are fairly or very likely to do the same.
