Consumers shopping search habits revealed

Monday, June 30, 2014 - 11:26 by David Aiken

A new survey has revealed the kinds of products and retailers that consumers across the UK and Europe are searching for in the most significant numbers, with beer and chicken coming out on top in terms of overall popularity, according to Retail Times.

The Tiendeo study showed that almost a third of Brits use the web to search for places where they can buy groceries via safe shopping online, although interestingly, the use of e-commerce supermarkets is actually more common in Germany.

Another unexpected fact thrown up in the study is that the popularity of a product in terms of how many searches are carried out for it by consumers is actually higher if it is at the more expensive end of the scale.

This is probably because people are keen to do lots of research about any items which will be costing them a significant amount of cash, whereas it is fine to take risks on cheap products even if they end up being less than ideal.

In addition to beer and chicken, another of the most popular shopping-related searches is coffee, which actually ranks above many other consumable products in countries like Portugal.

Tiendeo analysts revealed that consumers are still eager to carry out searches for items online, even if they eventually intend to head out and pick them up at a high street store.

Having access to search engines on the internet means that people have the choice of either participating in safe shopping online there and then, or using what they have learnt to get a better deal at a bricks and mortar outlet.

This search data is of course important to retailers as well, since they can use it to work out the habits that consumers are developing and the products that they research thoroughly before purchasing.