Over four in five consumers in the UK will use their desktop or laptop to shop online (86 per cent), although only seven per cent will do so on a tablet, and only four per cent on a smartphone.
The research by Toluna QuickSurveys of 2,000 consumers in the UK, US and Germany, found that 88 per cent of consumers said they do half or all of their shopping online.
One of the top reasons for UK consumers shopping online is to compare the best price or service for Christmas gifts (65 per cent), and over half of Brits (51 per cent) do so to ‘see everything they need’ at a glance.
Mark Simon, managing director of global technology practice at Toluna, commented on the findings: “The availability of cheaper products online, as well as a proliferation of user-friendly, unbiased price comparison sites, is clearly detracting from the traditional in-store shopping experience.
“However, smartphones and tablets are not being used, suggesting they may not yet facilitate online retail experiences as well as traditional technologies. It will be interesting to see how technologies develop to provide better shopping experiences both in-store and online to adapt to consumers’ changing priorities.”
Social media fared even worse than smartphones and tablets for being used to facilitate or inspire Christmas spending in the UK: only five per cent will use a link from a Facebook page to go on to purchase an item, with a further six per cent redeeming a Facebook offer.
Only one per cent said they drew inspiration from Pinterest.
Near Field Communication (NFC) was also found to be not an area of interest for the majority of consumers: only one in ten plan to pay for items using their smartphones via (11 per cent), with over four-fifths of consumers saying they will definitely not use their mobile phone to ‘wave and pay’ for purchases in-store (81 per cent).