We all know how popular online clothes shopping is, but did you ever wonder what the least popular items are for shopping online?
YouGov recently polled over 2,000 British consumers and discovered that furniture, groceries and beauty products are the three least popular product areas in online retail.
This doesn’t really surprise me for three reasons:
1) When buying furniture, it’s a very bad idea to buy online unless you have seen the item in real life. Photos sometimes just don’t represent reality, and it’s pretty hard to visualise the dimensions of something online!
2) There’s nothing worse than bruised, over-ripe fruit is there? For this reason, I can understand why groceries are one of the least favourite things to buy online! Sell-by dates are also an issue.
3) I really don’t know any woman who would buy make-up that they couldn’t sample in real life. It is rather quite impossible to see what colour suits you online.
Key Findings
- 49% of those polled said had never bought groceries online
- 28% said that they never would
- 50% of respondents said they had never bought furniture online
- 44% said they never bought cosmetics through a website
In contrast:
- 86% had purchased entertainment products
- 74% had bought a holiday online
Reasons for online purchases
- Peer reviews are more effective in influencing consumer sales than expert opinion
- 73% of those polled said they had bought a particular product online after reading opinions of those that had bought the same product
- Only 39% made a purchase after reading the opinion of an industry expert or journalist.
Have you ever bought furniture, groceries or beauty products online? Were you happy with your purchase?