Shoppers shun online shopping apps: study

Consumers prefer to pick up an item in-store after purchasing it online.

About three-quarters of consumers still shop in physical stores over mobile shopping apps (59%) during the past 12 months, according to a survey from Wirecard.

This comes on the back of the rising popularity of more advanced cross-channel purchasing options, such as buying online and then picking up in-store (BOPIS). More than nine in 10 either research the products they want to purchase online before buying in-store afterwards (98%) or vice versa (97%).

Hong Kong shoppers prefer to use an app on their phone (79%) to do research whilst in-store, compared to other methods like an online store website, in-store screens or a VR booth. Almost all (93%) of Hong Kong respondents say that if a brand or merchant doesn’t offer these kinds of options, it would have some influence in their decision to shop there.

Furthermore, digital payments are now predominant in the purchasing process with over 90% of consumers using cashless payment methods both online and in-store.