e-Commerce is certainly one of the largest trends to affect business and culture over the past 25 years. In 2013 Amazon did $74.45 billion in revenue, but when compared to Walmart that number looks small. The Arkansas based retailer is close to half a trillion in sales.
Find more statistics at Statista
Barbara Thau wrote an article on Forbes that broke down a recent shopping preference study. The study conducted by A.T. Kearney, showed that people prefer brick and mortar shopping hands down.
The A.T. Kearney Omnichannel Shopping Preferences Study. The sample size was, 2,500 shoppers from a cross section of demographic groups, including teens, Millennials, Generation X, Baby Boomers and senior citizens.
One of the interesting takeaways was that teens and their grandparents are a lot alike when it comes to shopping.
“Everybody says that teens are online all the time and they do everything online,” Moriarty said. “What the survey found was that teens actually behave a lot like seniors. They actually do a lot more testing and trial in store, a lot more shopping in store, and do a lot of discovery online — much like seniors do.”
Another takeaway:
One of the most eye-opening findings: “Ninety percent of shoppers surveyed would prefer to buy in a brick-and-mortar store across demographic and age groups,” Mike Moriarty, a partner in the retail practice of A.T. Kearney, and co-author of the study, told Forbes.
And for pretty simple reasons. “They love going out, shopping with people and touching stuff,” Moriarty said. “Everybody likes going shopping.”
Read the full article here
“Among the more surprising findings of the study is when it comes to shopping, teenagers and senior citizens are kindred spirits.”
“Everybody says that teens are online all the time and they do everything online,” Moriarty said. “What the survey found was that teens actually behave a lot like seniors. They actually do a lot more testing and trial in store, a lot more shopping in store, and do a lot of discovery online — much like seniors do.”
-This is the most ridiculous take away from this article. The reason that these two groups match up in the study is because teens can’t buy anything online because they don’t have a credit card. Senior citizens don’t buy anything online because the majority don’t know how to use a computer. So at the end of the day Grandpa takes his teenage grandson to the mall and they both buy something and Grandpa pays off it because he’s the only one with a credit card.
You might not be correct.
Teens under 18 years-old cannot apply for a credit card without a parent’s co-signature, but according to school loan provider, Nellie Mae more than 54 percent of college freshmen carry a credit card. By sophomore year, the percentage of students who own at least one card rises to 92 percent. Nellie Mae also reports that on average, freshmen bring an average of $1,585 in credit card debt to college.
For Seniors
Forrester found that about 60% of U.S. seniors are online. That’s about 20 million people and while this obviously means that 40% don’t care much about the Internet, those 60% who are online are tech-savvy and happily use technology to connect to their friends and family.
Online seniors, says Forrester analyst Gina Sverdlov, also highly value their mobile phones, but mostly for making calls. Only 22% of online seniors use their phones to access the Internet and only 7% of those who are online and own a mobile phone use mobile apps on a regular basis.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/08/online-seniors-tech-savvier-than-you-think/
Most college freshman are 18 years old going on 19 so this would be considered the smallest portion of the group. There still is the 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 year old teenagers that don’t have a credit card. This much bigger percentage of the group don’t have access to credit yet. Like you said the parents can co-sign for the card but what percentage of parents actually do.
Even though 60% of Seniors are online doesn’t mean that those 60% are spending online. Most of this 60% are either on Facebook, checking their email or watching their grandkids on Youtube. I don’t know what the figure is but I can bet that not even half of that 60% actually buy anything online. Buying things online is not only confusing to a large percentage of this group but also they are often hesitant to change their buying habits because of security concerns online. I know this first hand from buying things online for my own mother who is clueless of how to buy anything over the net. You can bet she knows how to watch my kids on Youtube though.
Hello , MHB,
Brick And Mortar it should be mentioned is the steak. E-commerce supples the prime cuts. Compare a brick and mortar Return on investment to a strategically superior (Online Return On Investment) , and you may want to consider this article comparing apples to oranges. So whats the real story ?
Gratefully Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Domain Master)