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Reverse Showrooming - Growth
About 28.9% of the United States consumers prefer reverse showrooming or researching products online and then purchasing offline. The projected growth of digitally influenced US retail sales, through online and mobile advertising, online marketplaces, and mobile search is expected to reach 58% by 2023 from 36% in 2018 (or about $1.3 trillion of the total retail sales). The main reason why US consumers engage in reverse showrooming is to be able to read customer reviews of the products before buying them offline through physical stores.
Reverse showrooming prevalence
- According to a report from GetApp, 28.9% of US consumers prefer reverse showrooming, or to research items online and then buy in physical stores. On the other hand, only 7.5% prefer showrooming, or researching products in physical stores first and then buying online.
- Majority of the consumers (53.1%) still prefer shopping online, while 10.5% of US consumers prefer to research and buy products in physical stores.
- About 36.6% of US consumers said they only do 25% of their purchases using reverse showrooming, 32.8% of US consumers do 25%-50% of their purchases using reverse showrooming, and only about 5% of US consumers do 75%-100% of their purchases using reverse showrooming.
- According to a report from GetApp, the products mostly preferred by US consumers for using reverse showrooming are electrical items (15.1%), electronic items (14.3%), clothing (13%), home furnishings (10.9%), and groceries (8.9%).
- According to a report from Oath, preference per generation on using webrooming when purchasing products are 40% of millennials, 35% of Generation X, and 33% of Baby Boomers.
Reverse showrooming growth
- According to a report from Forrester Group, the total US retail sales in 2018 was about $3.7 trillion in multiple categories, where 36% (or about $1.3 trillion of total) was influenced by digital factors via reverse showrooming such as online and mobile advertising, online marketplaces, and mobile search.
- By 2023, 58% of total US retail sales will be influenced by digital factors, wherein consumers first research online and then purchase offline or in-store, also called as reverse showrooming.
- About 31% of the 2018 US total retail sales (about $1.1 trillion of total) was digitally influenced by mobile smartphones which is projected to have 90% shares of digitally influenced sales in 2022. This will grow to about $1.4 trillion in retail sales by 2023, according to a report from Forrester Group.
Consumer reasons for engaging in reverse showrooming
According to a report from GetApp, the reasons why US consumers engage in practicing reverse showrooming include:
- Consumers want to read customer reviews of products before buying them offline. (49.1% of US consumers)
- Consumers can compare prices across multiple retailers. (29.1% of US consumers)
- Consumers want to take their time on making decisions before buying their products offline. (16.5% of US consumers)
- Consumers want to view their products at a faster pace. (5.2% of US consumers)