Consumer Shopping Research: see how consumers interact with retailers

"Chinese consumers are more likely to buy online than other consumers around the world, which is a unique market opportunity for Chinese retailers," he said. "Retailers need to think about how to provide a good user experience to avoid the casual loss of consumers in their physical stores," said Cregg Stevenson, general manager of the retail industry in IBM's Greater China region. ”

The IBM Business Value Institute recently released the 2013 Retail Research report, "from trading to relationships-keeping in touch with evolving shoppers." The report's survey of about 26,000 consumers from 14 countries shows that consumers with greater initiative are increasingly accustomed to shopping through online and offline channels. Of these, 31% of Chinese respondents will eventually opt for online shopping, twice times the global average.

To understand how consumers perceive and interact with retailers, the IBM Institute of Business Values surveyed 1800 shoppers in 10 one or two-line cities in China and found three important trends:

First, in all retail channels, the real store still occupies the vast majority of market share, but the attraction of online channels is increasing rapidly, and the most prominent Chinese consumers.

The survey found that only 68% of consumers in the last purchase of Non-food items in the physical store, only 26% of the people are planning to buy the next time the physical store, and 32% of the people are planning to choose the next shopping online channel. Consumers believe that home delivery is the main reason for their choice of online shopping, while the rich and favorable product range is also an important reason.

Second, physical stores than goods, online purchase. That is, shoppers go to the physical store to pick products, but eventually buy online. Among all the shoppers surveyed in China, such shoppers accounted for 24%--the highest proportion of all countries in the world.

More interestingly, the study found that 89% of these shoppers had no intention of shopping through physical stores. The main purpose of their visit to the physical store is to understand and test the product and to compare prices. Another reason why consumers are no longer inclined to go to physical stores is that the widespread use of mobile devices makes the process of shopping more convenient. In China, price comparisons and bargaining, understanding ratings and reading ratings are among the most popular applications on mobile devices.

Retail industry analyst at IBM Institute of Business Value, the traditional entity store retailer faces the challenge of building a seamless brand and shopping experience online to win customers to avoid becoming a showroom for other retailers.

Third, consumers are interested in personalized and innovative interaction with retailers. In addition to financial and health information, Chinese consumers are willing to share information with their trusted retailers to improve communication quality.

In the view of IBM analysts, as the online shopping gradually merged into one, survival and success will depend on the retailer's ability to access consumers through various channels, and more importantly, it provides consumers with multi-channel seamless connection shopping experience ability. Consumers both like shopping in the physical store has a fast and rich interaction, but also recognized the convenience of online shopping, product rich and preferential prices. Today's initiative consumers want to enjoy the advantages of two channels on line, and they will go shopping with retailers who can provide an excellent multi-channel shopping experience.