Multichannel shoppers spend more

Within the home, electrical and clothing retail categories multichannel customers spend, on average, $182 compared to an average of $100 for shoppers who only purchase in-store. That’s around 82% more.

Across the same three categories, Deloitte found 38% of all retail transactions were somehow influenced by the Internet – 21% bought online and 17% multichannel purchases.

“The digital revolution in retail is at a tipping point with consumers expecting to shop through any channel and receive consistent service,” said Ian Geddes, UK head of retail at Deloitte.

“There are already examples of UK retailers doing well in multichannel but the overriding feeling is that there are many more opportunities to grow. This is particularly the case for those retailers able to respond quickly to customers changing buying habits between channels, for example, the recent growth of clothing online.”

Other key findings from the research include:

– Consumers from higher socioeconomic groups are more likely to be multichannel shoppers (33% of AB vs. 22% of DE)

– Men are more likely to be Internet influenced shoppers than women and also tend to spend more per transaction (33% male vs. 27% female)

– 1% of multichannel clothing shoppers used their mobile device for research purposes, but we expect this to increase rapidly

– Catalogs remain an important element of shopping in the UK. 11% of Internet influenced home-ware consumers and 12% of Internet influenced clothing shoppers used catalogs for research purposes.