Emotional Shopping - Current Online Shopping Trends

AOL Research has shown that 66% of online shopping behaviours include an emotional component. The Millennial generation has the highest proportion of emotional shoppers and the data suggest that these people are prone to impulse buying. Emotional shopping was given three categories:

• Expertise Browsing: shoppers want knowledge of the latest trends and products. This knowledge can be shared with others for a feeling of belonging.
• Boredom Browsing: shoppers browse and purchase items to fill their time.
• Dopamine Browsing: shoppers feel inspired and rewarded when purchasing items.

AOL Research partnered with Insights Now to survey 11,000 online consumers in an effort to determine what motivated shoppers. 30% of the time it was found that online shopping had a specific intent or purpose. Intent-based shopping occurs by people that are looking for good deals and those that have a problem that needs solving.

Online shopping carts were also found to be used for purposes other than making immediate purchases: These purposes include:

• Creating a shopping list.
• Creating a list to allow for easy comparison between products.
• Saving a list of products that inspire them.

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IBM STUDY SHOWS CANADIAN CONSUMERS EMBRACING MOBILE RETAIL

An annual IBM global survey of 30,000 consumers in 13 countries, including more than 2,000 Canadians, reveals Canadians are adopting new shopping technologies faster than most.

The number of Canadians willing to use mobile technologies to shop increased by 160% year-to-year, second only to the US in uptake. The survey also shows the number of Canadian “instrumented” consumers – who use two or more technologies such as a Web site, mobile device or in-store kiosk – increased by 65% over last year’s results, almost double the global result of a 36% increase year-to-year.

The survey also found that: consumers are checking prices in store, where 70% of final product selection happens, using smart phones and UPC tags to check competitive offerings; and consumers want to shop seamlessly across channels, check product prices wherever they are, get promotions based on the items they scan, and use a personal mobile device to avoid the checkout lane.

More information about the survey