The COVID-19 pandemic created fresh opportunities for retailers to use new channels, fulfillment strategies and payment options to build their businesses, according to the results of a new survey out today from BigCommerce and PayPal.
A majority of the 3,000 consumers surveyed in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia said they still prefer in-person shopping, but 62.5% reported doing most of their purchasing online. Almost half said they’re discovering new products on social media at least once a month, and 66.7% of respondents said they made a purchase directly through their phone at least once in the past month.
According to BigCommerce and PayPal:
- Consumers continue to move away from brick-and-mortar stores to digital commerce and increasingly use their phones to make purchases.
- Omnichannel strategies open up the opportunity for retailers to reevaluate their sales and marketing strategies and ensure they’re meeting customers where they are the most likely to spend.
- More consumers are using digital wallets in stores and online with purchase preference increasing from 28.3% prior to March 2020 to 35.2% after March 2020, with the proportional gain for digital wallets in stores increasing from 12.1% to 22.8%.
Although 95.2% of respondents reported making at least one online purchase since March 2020, a slight majority across all regions reported a preference for shopping in stores. Still, 32.6% of U.S. respondents, 29.9% of U.K. respondents and 29.7% of Australian respondents said the convenience of online shopping trumps drawbacks, and new options like buy online, pick-up in-store, are additional attractions.
Buy-online pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) has grown substantially since March 2020, with a 373% increase in the U.S. transaction fulfillment, where BOPIS has been slower to catch on compared to other countries.
Mid-market merchants are increasingly adopting buy-now, pay-later solutions for their e-commerce stores, services offered by 48% in Australia, 20% in the U.S. and 11% in the U.K.
