Home & Garden, Electronics, Health & Beauty are Most Impacted by Showrooming, Accounting for Over Half of Lost Dollars
Numerator, a data and tech company serving the market research space, has released a report to quantify the showrooming effect — when consumers browse a brick-and-mortar store and then buy online. The analysis covers cross-shopping behavior among the largest US retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Target and Costco – specifically, consumers who supplement in-store shopping trips with an Amazon purchase within one day.
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Key purchase data findings include:
The Amazon crossover is substantial and consistent across major retailers. Roughly three-quarters of major retailers’ shoppers also shop at Amazon. (76% of Walmart shoppers, 77% of Target shoppers, 75% of Costco shoppers).
Walmart buyers are the most likely to shop on Amazon within one day. Over half (53%) of Walmart shoppers made an Amazon purchase within a day of shopping in-store at Walmart, compared to 38% of both Target and Costco shoppers.
Target has the largest opportunity to capture lost day-of sales to Amazon. By preventing leaked same-day trips to Amazon, Target has the potential to capture 10.3% in incremental sales, followed by Walmart (+7.2%) and Costco (+4.7%).
General Merchandise items make up the majority of leaked sales to Amazon. The top four leaked categories (Home & Garden, Electronics, Health & Beauty, Apparel) accounted for over half of all leaked dollars at each retailer.
- Home & Garden products at Walmart had the highest percentage of leaked sales (18.5%) among all categories and retailers.
- Electronics leakage was highest at Costco (15.9% of leaked sales), followed by Walmart (14.9%) and Target (14.2%).
- Target was the only retailer to have Grocery appear in the top five leaked categories (5.2% of leaked sales).
In addition to purchase data analysis, Numerator issued a survey to verify Walmart and Target buyers who had followed their in-store purchase with an Amazon order to understand the motivations behind cross-shopping.
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Key survey data findings include:
Product availability and ease of delivery were top reasons cited for buying on Amazon after shopping in-store.
- 30% of Walmart-to-Amazon shoppers said they made the Amazon purchase due to lack of product availability in-store, 6 points higher than reported by Target shoppers (24%).
- Nearly one-third of both Target and Walmart shoppers claimed “ease of delivery” as their reason for buying on Amazon – despite being in the brick-and-mortar store that same day.
- Lower prices were cited as the reason for shopping on Amazon by 22% of Walmart shoppers and 20% of Target shoppers.
- Nearly a quarter (24%) of Target shoppers said they bought on Amazon because they had already searched for the products on Amazon before going in-store, 7 points higher than Walmart shoppers who said the same (17%).
Walmart has an opportunity to capture leaked trips by reducing out of stocks and improving the in-store shopping experience, while Target could focus on pricing and promotions.
- When asked what Walmart or Target could do to capture more of a consumer’s purchases, nearly 2 in 5 consumers (39%) said Walmart should focus on product availability, 14 points higher than those who said the same for Target (25%).
- Offering lower prices was the top recommendation from Target shoppers (39%), compared to 36% of Walmart shoppers.
- Improving the in-store experience represented the largest gap (21 points) between Walmart and Target shoppers, with nearly 1 in 3 Walmart shoppers (28%) making this request, compared to 7% of Target shoppers.
