Online shopping time from research to purchase analysed

Tuesday, August 2, 2016 - 11:59 by Graham Miller

Although plenty of people tend to see the availability of shopping online as a quick and convenient way of making a purchase when pushed for time, there are others who take much longer to complete their digital retail journey, according to a new study from Monetate.

It found that a fifth of consumers take more than seven hours to commit to a purchase, with the rise of multichannel retail actually being cited as instrumental in developing this trend.

Today people have the opportunity to research products while they are on the move or on the sofa using a smartphone or tablet. This allows them to take more time comparing various options, thinking hard about which item to choose and also finding out which site offers the best price.

Because of this, the journey taken by consumers in the age of safe shopping online is getting longer, not shorter.

There is, of course, room for impulse buying and split second decisions, but because shoppers are not limited to making a decision while they are in a bricks and mortar outlet, it is easy to see why the process can become extended over days, weeks or months rather than limited to a single afternoon on the high street.

The study also found that nine in 10 people who begin shopping from a desktop or laptop computer will ultimately complete their purchase on the same device. Meanwhile for mobile-originated research, this figure is lower at just 64 per cent.

This reaffirms the idea that traditional computers remain a much more consistent tool for concerted shopping efforts, while portable devices encourage a casual approach, where completing a purchase is not always the aim and plenty of people will choose to finalise a transaction on a different device.