Online Grocery Shoppers Migrate Back To Brick And Mortar
A new study conducted by researchers at London’s Kingston University which was recently published in the European Journal of Marketing, analysing the spending habits of online grocery shoppers, suggests that individuals who make the switch from visiting physical stores to digital stores, often do so only temporarily.
Online supermarkets such as Ocado, or the digital store fronts of traditional chains such as ASDA Grocery Online or Tesco are considered amongst the sophisticated online supermarkets in the world, and have clocked up impressive sales growth over the last few years.
For people who work long or irregular hours, the online grocery shopping option comes as a boon. The researchers however say that most people who choose to do their grocery shopping online do so because of specific lifestyle triggers.
These triggers can be anything from the birth of a child or the breaking of a leg, or moving to a new area. However the switch to digital seems to be temporary according to the results of the study, as personal situations tend to change.
Delivery wait times and substitutions of products that are out of stock, over time begin to weigh more heavily on the consumer. The study’s result suggest even the most committed internet shoppers rarely ever completely abandon brick and mortar, with many finding themselves in supermarket aisles.
“When someone starts buying books or music online they don’t normally stop and go back to bookshops or CD sellers but that’s exactly what is happening with many online grocery shoppers,” said Dr Chris Hand, one of the researchers.
The researchers say the online supermarket offerings could try different methods of tying their customers down by adapting their business models, i.e. opting for a monthly subscription fee instead of charging for delivery, or making some special offers online discount coupons only.
If you are one of those people who do a lot of grocery shopping online, then you should think about setting up a online wish list using a tool like boxedup.com. boxed up is free of cost and lets you save any item you see online to your wish list using a single click, and offers a quick and easy way to access to all items on your online wish list
