Convenience of e-commerce makes high street shoppers less patient

Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - 09:09 by Paul Tissington

While a willingness to queue politely and in an orderly fashion is a source of national pride across the UK, it seems that the rise of safe shopping online is putting an end to this stereotype, or at least changing consumer expectations so much that traditional waiting times are no longer tolerable.

This is according to a survey carried out by Worldpay, which found that people across the country are unwilling to stand in a queue for more than five minutes when attempting to make a purchase at a bricks and mortar outlet.

When respondents were divided along geographic lines, it was found that those in the northern parts of Britain are the least concerned about hold-ups, with almost a third stating that they would happily wait for longer than this time period in a shop.

Meanwhile, residents of the capital were less forgiving, with just 18 per cent saying that they were comfortable with lengthy queuing.

Analysts believe that e-commerce has given consumers the tools to make queuing a thing of the past in many instances, with same day delivery options increasingly available and many people choosing to order items via safe shopping online to be collected in store, with payment already made to eliminate the need for a transaction upon arrival.

This is yet another way in which the convenience of being able to shop on the web is making it harder for high street outlets to meet the expectations of digitally savvy shoppers. But it might equally be seen as an opportunity for firms that are ahead of the curve to combine their real world outlets with their e-commerce services in imaginative ways, to ensure that queues are not an issue and that customers’ needs are completely satisfied.