To find products in the store personally and have a direct contact with salespeople remain very important for consumers who, however, would like to get into cutting edge stores. This is evident from “Total Retail 2017 survey” by PwC’s”, which takes a picture of the international retail landscape and its evolutions.
The results of the surveys conducted in this study highlight the desire for more efficient and advanced consumer services. For example, 65% of the panel would like to see the products availability in another stores or on-line more quickly, 57% would like to display product on-screen and order a wide range of items inside the shop. In addition, 53% of consumers would like to enter in a more inviting environments. In response to these requests, retailers say they are ready to invest for creating a new store experience (37%), a social communication (31%), and to improve CRM (31%) services.
With regard to the purchase of household appliances, in Italy it still takes place more frequently in store, as 46% of the respondents state, compared with 41% who buy devices with Internet.
Italy is one of the markets more close to the shop, as well as France (49%). Germany and the UK, on the other hand, show greater propensity to use e-commerce: in the first of two countries, 43% of consumers buy household appliances in store, compared to 47% who buy on-line. In the UK, however, only 37% of consumers buy inside the point of sale, compared to 52% of on-line shoppers.
However, if we look at the world average, consumer choice goes back to the physical store, as 56% of users are looking at the point of sale for the purchase of home appliances, compared to a 33% who instead buy on the web.
As well known, the trend is different in the case of consumer electronics, for the purchase of which on-line channel is frequently the first choice. In Italy, 56% of consumers buy electronic devices on the web, while 36% go in store. At a world level, however, it is still the majority (51%) to buy in the store against 43% who chooses e-commerce. In Western Europe, France is one of the few markets with 50% of consumers that still buy electronics in stores, while in Germany and the United Kingdom e-commerce dominates.
