The FINANCIAL — New York – If showrooming was a holiday trend to watch in 2012, then webrooming (wherein consumers do their research online and then head to the store to actually make a purchase) is one to watch in 2013, according to a recent Harris Poll following up on research first implemented during last year's holiday season and revisited earlier this year.
As of this holiday season, nearly half of Americans have showroomed (46%), up from midyear (40%) and up slightly from 2013 (43%). But if it's a pure numbers game, webrooming would appear to come into this pairing at an advantage, as roughly seven in ten Americans (69%) indicate having done this, according to Harris Interactive Inc.
To be clear, these two consumer behaviors are far from mutually exclusive – in fact, those who have done one are more likely to have done the other as well, when compared to general population. Six in ten webroomers have showroomed (59%, vs. 46% of Americans overall) and nearly nine in ten showroomers have webroomed (88%, vs. 69% of total Americans). Additionally, men are more likely than women to have both showroomed (53% and 40%, respectively) and webroomed (75% and 63%, respectively), according to the report.
But where are consumers spending their online and in-person shopping time? Looking first at showroomers, Walmart (24%) and Best Buy (21%) are the top destinations for their hands-on time, followed by Target (9%).
Male showroomers are roughly twice as likely to visit Best Buy as their female counterparts (27% men, 14% women), while women are roughly three times as likely to visit Target (14% women, 5% men), says the report.
Once they get home and are ready to make their purchase, though, there's one clear destination standing out over the others, with roughly six in ten showroomers (59%) identifying Amazon as the online retailer they most frequently purchase from after visiting a store – about ten times as many as select Walmart (6%), the next highest response.
While the majority of showrooming excursions end on Amazon, the highest percentage of webrooming trips (again by a dramatic margin) begin there, with 48% of webroomers naming it as the website they most often visit to examine a product before purchasing it in-store.
And after their online investigations are complete, where are webroomers most likely to go to make their purchases? Where else? Right back to Walmart (26%), Best Buy (11%) and Target (11%)!
Walmart seems to be most successful at transitioning their online visitors into in-store purchasers, as two-thirds (67%) of those webroomers who typically do their investigating at Walmart online say they usually go on to make their in-store purchases at a Walmart brick and mortar store, according to Harris Interactive Inc.
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