Wealthy consumers are as likely to make purchases in-store as online, and few have embraced showrooming, loosely defined as the practice of checking out a product in-store before buying online. According to new research from the Luxury Institute, 78% of wealthy consumers (earning at least $150,000 a year) had bought something in a store in the previous 12 months, and 77% had ordered something online via computer. Only 1 in 4 reported buying online after checking out merchandise in-store (the study did not mention the use of a mobile device in-store). Research released last year by ClickIQ found that 45% of consumers surveyed, who were required to have shopped both retail stores and online within the past 6 months, said they had researched or gathered information about a product in a retail store (not online) first and then purchased the product online.
The Luxury Institute study shows that the ROPO (research online, purchase offline) effect is more common than showrooming among wealthy consumers: 45% reported having made an in-store purchase after researching on a computer.
Wealthy consumers also leverage mobile devices to assist with shopping. 1 in 5 reported having used a tablet’s web browser to make a purchase in the past year, making that a more common transaction type than catalog purchases (17%), telephone orders (15%), and purchases via smartphone web access (14%).
Other Findings:
- 1 in 5 respondents were motivated by a catalog to make an in-store purchase, while 16% were motivated by one to make an online purchase.
- Slightly more than 1 in 10 respondents use downloaded applications for phones (12%) and tablets (11%) as shopping channels.
