The Methodology Behind the State of Omni-Channel Retail
This study was conducted in partnership with Kelton Global, a leading insights firm.
There are two populations included in this study: 1,002 nationally representative Americans ages 18+, and an oversample to reach 1,005 Americans ages 18+ who have made an online purchase in the past six months
One thing that was abundantly clear from the findings: shopping channels are no longer siloed. Consumers don’t shop only online or only in store — they shop in whichever channel is the most convenient. But just because shoppers are seamlessly shifting between purchasing options and platforms doesn’t mean that retailers are. Many brands have been slow to pivot to this new omni-channel environment. That’s why we structured our study to get a clearer picture of exactly how Americans shop, broken down into four retail types.
Retail types
- Marketplace: Online marketplaces selling a variety of items. Examples include Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Jet.
- Large brand name retailer: Legacy retailers with an omni-channel presence, meaning they have both brick-and-mortar locations and online storefronts. The brand itself is relatively known throughout households in the U.S. Examples include Nordstrom, Apple, Gap, Best Buy, West Elm, Walgreens and Lowe’s.
- Webstore: These are small, online-only independent retailers. Examples were not shown to survey respondents given that there are thousands of this type of online-only store.
- Category-specific online stores: These are large online retailers focused on a niche product offering. Examples include Zappos, Wayfair, Zulily and Shutterfly.
We also separated the data into demographics to help you better understand and compare trends for target audiences. We chose to segment data into a number of important groups.
Generational
Millennials are today’s largest buying demographic, and they shop differently than any generation that came before them. Older generations are catching on though, and even most seniors have made an online purchase in the last six months.
Here is how we categorized generations for this study:
- Millennials: 18–34 years of age
- Gen Xers: 35–49 years of age
- Baby Boomers: 50–68 years of age
- Seniors: 69+ years of age
Parents vs. non-parents
This is an atypical callout for most consumer behavior reports, but the data proved that these two segments act very differently when shopping online.
Parents as a whole shop more online and on marketplaces than any other segment. This is key information, especially for brands catering and advertising to parents. We offer exclusive insights about where to market your brand to increase exposure to parents and grow your bottom line.
Gender
In the retail sector, we are looking specifically at the differences in how men and women shop with retailers who target those segments. Participants self-selected their gender as male or female.
City size
Google’s evolving mobile-local algorithm updates in 2015 sealed the deal on just how important “local” is in today’s commerce industry. We looked at city size to better understand how Americans’ shopping preferences and habits are affected by where they live.
This data reveals differences in the consumer behavior of those living in the following city sizes:
- Metropolitan: This was defined as a combination of the following categories:
- Large metropolitan area (city population over one million)
- Mid-sized metropolitan area (city population 250,000-999,999)
- Smaller metropolitan area (city population under 250,000)
- Suburban: Cities outside of main metropolitan areas or city centers
- Rural: Small towns and areas throughout the U.S. a good distance from suburban or metropolitan areas
