Study predicts online purchasing revolution

A study by the HSG shows that women in particular are increasingly purchasing textiles online.Consumers of all ages are spending more and more time searching for products on the Internet. Shopping for clothes online is particularly popular, shows the latest online retail study by the Research Center for Retail Management at the HSG. More than 1,000 consumers in Switzerland were surveyed.The digitally fastest-growing sectors over the past two years include banking services (+10.9%), admission tickets (+10.5%), videos/DVDs (+9.6%), train tickets (+8.8%), music titles (+8.7%), software (+7.0%), vacation travel (+4.6%) and airline tickets (+1.8%).Situational shopping (sometimes online, sometimes in-store) is growing fastest in traditional retail industries, such as apparel (+13.5%), jewelry (+11.2%), electronics (+9.2%), personal care (+8.3%), furniture (+4.6%) and groceries (+3.9%).The shifts are coming at the expense of in-store shopping, which is losing popularity across all industries. "Some industries, such as apparel retailing, could see an online buying revolution in the next few years," says Prof. Dr. Thomas Rudolph, director of the Research Center for Retail Management (IRM-HSG). "Female customers, in particular, have been buying textiles online much more often for the past two years and are looking online for inspiration for new items."Leisure time takes place more "onlineYounger consumers under 25 spend three and a half hours of their free time on the Internet every day. The intensity of use has largely converged between men and women, but interests still differ. Women use the Internet more often than men to communicate with others. For example, around 25% of women name the social network Facebook as their most popular website; for men, the figure is only 16%. Men prefer to search for news on the Internet, preferably on entertainment portals and news sites. As an overarching trend, an increasing fun orientation is spreading. Almost 69% of Swiss Internet users tend to go online frequently to "have fun." Two years ago, the figure was just 54%.The motive to "educate oneself further" online, on the other hand, remains at the same level. "Over the past decade, we've seen an increasing fun orientation online," says Dr. Oliver Emrich, assistant professor at the Retail Management Research Center. This long-term trend has been reinforced in recent years by the mobile Internet. Around 73% of Internet users access it via smartphone at least weekly; in 2013, the figure was only 66%.Skepticism among younger Internet usersAs a countertrend to the rising online affinity, some purchase barriers are becoming more relevant again. More consumers are abandoning their online purchase because they have had a bad experience (21% agreement), they find the home delivery service poor (25%) or the product range does not meet their expectations (27%).Younger Internet users under 25 are much more critical of the Internet today than they were two years ago. However, fundamental reservations about the Internet as a shopping channel (e.g., fundamental displeasure) continue to decrease in all age segments.More information on the study is available at here.