Multi-Channel Shopping Changing Retail

• Posted: Wednesday, June 18, 2008
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• Author: pradhana
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• Filed under: Business Analysis

Bargain hunting reduces loyalty

US consumers are increasingly using multiple channels to shop and buy. While researching online and then buying in-store has become common, this consumer behavior is changing consumer loyalties and spending. Multi-channel shopping is also changing how retailers sell their goods.

Consumers in the US who shop using multiple channels are more likely to purchase from multiple providers, according to an April 2008 study by Opinion Research Corporation (ORC). "Multi-channel customers are often the most astute about pricing, and as such, may not be the most loyal," said Jill Glathar, vice president at ORC, in a statement.

The good news is that multi-channel shoppers tended to spend nearly twice as much as consumers who used only one channel.

ORC also noted that multi-channel shopping varied by industry, with far fewer consumers using multiple channels to shop at specialty stores than at big box retailers such as Home Depot or mass merchants such as Wal-Mart.

Those large multi-channel retailers also receive slightly more of their sales on the Internet than do total multi-channel retailers (35% vs. 31%), and 12 percentage points less of their sales come through stores, according to a February 2008 study commissioned by IBM and SAP and conducted by Retail Systems Research.

Read more - emarketer

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