• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About Strata-gee
  • Contact Us
  • Free Newsletter
  • Sponsor Strata-gee
  • Privacy Policy
  • Latest Posts
  • Strategy
  • Technology
  • Products
  • People
  • Statistics
  • Financial
  • Legal
  • Economic Data
  • Shows & Events

Strata-gee.com

Strategy in TECH...

What Savant Can Do
You are here: Home / Consumer Trends / New Study Shows Surprising Resilience of Retail Shopping

New Study Shows Surprising Resilience of Retail Shopping

August 2, 2017 by Ted Leave a Comment

Future of retail study coverIn a newly released study of consumer shopping trends, which like many others is very favorable to online shopping, analysts are discovering surprising data favoring brick-and-mortar retailers. Even more surprising, the study results indicate a resurgence in a preference to buy goods in brick-and-mortar retail by younger shoppers. This shocking result runs counter to other studies and has caught some analysts by surprise.

See the surprising results of this new study on retail shopping preferences…



Walker Sands communications, a PR and digital marketing company for the b-to-b channel, conducted a survey of 1,622 consumers across the U.S. on their shopping habits, preferences and views on emerging retail technology. The survey was taken in March 2017 with a detailed summary of results just recently released. It made for some interesting reading.

A marketing blog, MarketingProfs, was the first to point out that, amongst the many pages of the summary of results, a few poignant items pointed to a surprising resilience and even rebound of the traditional bricks & mortar retail business. For example, when asked – “How do you prefer to shop?” – a surprising 54% majority responded in a “Physical Store.” That’s right, although online shopping has come a long way, this study shows that a majority of Americans still prefer to shop for products at a physical store.

Savant

Where Consumers Prefer to Shop

Of course, online sales are also well represented, as 33% said they prefer to shop on a “Desktop” computer, followed by 8% who selected on a “Mobile Device.” Also interesting, in this age of voice-control mania, only 1% said they made a purchase via a “Voice-Controlled Device” like an Amazon Echo or Google Home.Where consumers prefer to shop

When looking at the demographic breakdown by age range of the respondents who said they like to shop in a physical store, things got even more interesting. You might expect that older generations would be more likely to select the option of shopping in physical stores, and you wouldn’t be surprised. The age range that mostly identified with shopping at a physical retail store was the 61+ age group.

Here’s a Surprise, Gen Z Prefers to Shop in Physical Store

But what might surprise you is that the next largest age group to show a preference for shopping in a physical store was the youngest one – 18-25. It certainly caught our eye and we dug further into the study to see if this was an outlier result, or there was further support in the results for other questions. And yes, there was further support of this result in other questions.Physical store preference by age

It didn’t escape our attention that the first question we referred to above was about “shopping,” not “buying.” It’s one thing to visit a physical store to shop, but another thing altogether to “buy” their goods there.

Sonance James Small Aperture

But Where Do Consumers Want to Buy?



We got our answer a little later in the study, when participants were asked to pick from a logical group of options to complete this sentence, “In the past year I have purchased a product…” The number one response, “In a physical store,” which was selected by an impressive 83% of the respondents. This was followed by 69% who selected “Online (regular shipping).” Interestingly, another 41% said they bought online for in-store pickup…sort of a hybrid approach.

So, there it is, a majority of consumers prefer to shop – and purchase – their goods in a physical bricks & mortar store. But why?Where consumers buy

Noting that the online experience has improved dramatically, the report says that, “More than a fourth of consumers (27%) think the online experience is already better than the in-store experience, and another 15% think it will surpass the in-store experience in the next year.” Still, “in-store shopping is making a comeback among the youngest shoppers,” as well over “half of Gen Z consumers prefer to shop in physical stores (58 percent), putting them on par with the older consumer groups.”

Craving Instant Gratification



The reason, the study suggests, is that “These newest shoppers, who grew up in the age of social media, crave instant gratification and an authentic experience from retailers.” The operative word there may be “experience.”

When asked what could motivate them to shop even more from physical stores, four of the top five responses from participants were decidedly about the experience, including: food and beverage offerings (30%), more personalized shopping experience (18%), live product demonstrations (18%), and special events and entertainment (17%). The top response, by the way, was exclusive discounts (64%).

Other Select Results:

  • Smartphone penetration has reached 78% (and tablets have reached 55% share)
  • More than one-out-of-four consumers own some type of in-home smart device (like a smart appliance, thermostat, or light)
  • 68% of Americans pay for at least one digital TV service
  • What concerns consumers about shopping via a voice-controlled device? 38% say security, while another 33% say privacy
  • Fully 80% said free shipping would convince them to shop online more
  • 84% of consumers have purchased something from Amazon in the past year

We will revisit this remarkable study more as we dig deeper as it appears to have many interesting results not only related to shopping, but in how consumers use technology.

See the MarketingProfs article on the research here... (free subscription required to see the entire article).


Share this post:

  • Tweet
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • More
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Filed Under: Consumer Trends, Research, Statistics, Survey Tagged With: consumer, online, retail

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Search

Sign-Up for Our FREE Newsletter

loader

Latest Posts

T-Day+1: Tariffs…And So It Begins…

STORY UPDATED 4/30/25 - See a Selection of Tariff Increases from Around the … [Read More...] about T-Day+1: Tariffs…And So It Begins…

Strata-gee Founder Hospitalized After Suffering Injuries in Accident on Monday

Strata-gee Founder & Chief Content Creator Ted Green was hospitalized on … [Read More...] about Strata-gee Founder Hospitalized After Suffering Injuries in Accident on Monday

  • T-Day+1: Tariffs…And So It Begins…
  • Masimo.com Has Been Down for ‘A Few Days’
  • Gentex, Owner of Onkyo & Klipsch, Reports 1Q/2025 Results; Sales & Profits Declined
  • LVMH: The Small Shudder That Rocked the Luxury World; Is Luxury Spending Declining?

Categories

Sponsors

Crestron Infra-Bass
AudioControl Single Zone Amps
Sonance James Small Aperture
Savant
Oasys Residential Technology Group

Tag Cloud

acquisition Amazon Apple AudioControl B&W Bowers & Wilkins CEDIA CEDIA Expo CES Control4 Core Brands COVID-19 Crestron D&M Holdings Denon Emerald Expositions Foxconn Gibson Brands Gibson Guitar Google Henry Juszkiewicz Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. housing starts Integra Joe Kiani LG Marantz Masimo Nortek OLED Onkyo Panasonic patent infringement Pioneer Samsung Savant Sharp smart home SnapAV Snap One Sonos Sony Sound United SpeakerCraft Toshiba

Footer

Got News?

HEY PR & Marketing Pros: Have NEWS for Strata-gee readers?

Send it to: HotNews@strata-gee.com

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Sponsor Strata-gee

Strata-gee Ads

Archives

Translate

Ted Green Bio

A former dealer, manufacturer, distributor & more. Focusing on business strategy, my goal is to help you make better decisions for greater success.

Follow Ted Green

  • Facebook
  • X
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram

Copyright © 2025 Strata-gee.com · The Stratecon Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved · Log in

%d