Almost 25% Of Britons Use Mobiles To Compare Prices While In-Store

Nearly a 25% of UK consumers turned to their mobile devices while shopping in-store to compare prices during the holiday season, as I read in a report from experience design specialist Foolproof.

The report is based on the results of a recent survey which also established that overall 39% of people aged between 18 and 39 stuck to this method, which is known as ‘showrooming’, in the period leading up to Christmas. People aged over 40 proved not to be big fans of the practice, as just 18% of them admitted to comparing prices during store visits. The difference in the way generations treat showrooming implies that, given its extreme popularity amongst young people, this practice will keep evolving and gaining more followers in the future.

According to the survey, 40% of UK shoppers eventually turned to another retailer to buy products after making price comparisons through their gadgets while in-store. More than 20% of the people who participated in the survey stated that the purpose of their visit in-store was only to have a closer look at an item that they were planning to purchase through the web.

The results further suggest that showrooming made one in 10 shoppers prefer one retailer at the expense of another, which resulted in about £500 million worth of sales being switched between vendors in the final two days before Christmas. The figure is based on data from the British Retail Consortium, which showed that Britons spent £5 billion in local shops during the reviewed period.

The growing popularity of showrooming should urge high-street retailers to explore new mechanisms to stimulate consumers to buy products in-store, the experts confirmed.