Forty-five percent of customers shopping in-store at bricks-and mortar-locations will walk out and complete their purchase online for a discount as low as 2.5 percent, according to a showrooming study from GroupM Next.
The number jumps to 60 percent of shoppers who will leave and purchase a product online for a savings of five percent. When discovering an online discount of 20 percent, only 13 percent stay and complete their purchase in store.
The study, "Showrooming & The Price Of Keeping Buyers In-Store," was conducted to take a close look at the influencing factors of showrooming and to identify the tipping point when the difference between an in-store and online price is large enough to lure shoppers out of stores.
The results were gleaned from a survey of 1,000 shoppers in the U.S. who were presented with multiple hypothetical showrooming scenarios for 10 products at varying price points spanning multiple retail categories.
In another measure, if the price difference in-store vs. online is more than $5.00, most customers will leave, the survey found. Overall, the study found that 44 percent of consumers use a mobile device to influence their purchase decision when shopping in-store.
"Showrooming is a label for a massive consumer behavior shift brought about by the ease of access to information on a mobile device," said GroupM Next CEO Chris Copeland, in a statement. "Brands that sit on either side, be it as the physical store or the online merchant, have multiple opportunities with this consumer change."
Unfortunately, the study underscored the challenges brick & mortar stores face against mobile-accessed discounts. For instance, customers who interacted with an associate were only 12.5 percent more likely to purchase in-store.
The profile of the shopper who can be most ‘swayed' to stay and complete a purchase in-store appears to be the least active shopper – the older male, 55 percent of whom buy online 1x per month. The most active showroomers were identified as mobile females who are younger in age and make online purchases frequently.
The study did note that "must-have-now" items were less susceptible to showrooming after finding that headphones took the largest discount for shoppers to leave to store without buying.