The Considered Consumer: Technology has slowed the path to purchase

Findings of the report, 'The Considered Consumer', show that compared to a decade ago, it takes longer today for a consumer to go from initial consideration to making a purchase. Today, it takes consumers three and a half days to go through the process compared with just half a day ten years ago.

Furthermore, during the same period, the time spent browsing has risen from 50 minutes to one and a half hours.

The report also found that today's consumers are happy to wait for a good deal. Seven out of 10 say they rarely buy items at full price and 60% will wait for a product to be offered at a discount. Similarly, today's consumer is more likely to plan a purchase rather than succumb to impulse. In that respect, shoppers are investigating more stores (13 now compared to 7 a decade ago) and 45% use three or four different channels compared to one or two.

Speaking of today's 'considered consumer', David Atkins, chief executive of Hammerson says, "Retailers have to work harder than ever to attract this customer - they need to distinguish their brand and their value proposition and it's essential to create compelling shopping environments both on and offline if they are to continue appealing to today's consumer."

The only part of the purchase journey that has sped up is the final transaction which now takes six minutes compared to eight minutes in 2004.

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Tags: consumer survey, ecommerce, online shopping, retail, shopping behavior