Let me guess: you bought something online today, didn’t you?
It’s ok! I’m not judging.
But do you want to know how I knew?
The average customer makes at least two transactions online every day, according to PYMNTS.
Their research shows that shoppers’ online shopping behavior was mainly influenced by making retail purchases or ordering food online.
It’s obvious that digital shopping is here to stay (which accelerated during the pandemic).
But it will take a little more for your brand to stay relevant in a shopper’s wallet.
I conducted a survey of 1,000 people to gain insights into their online shopping behaviors, so I can inform you of what similar trends you can expect to see in 2023.
Let’s see what trends are going to stick…
How Behavior Leads To Shopping Action
Stay current on consumer shopping habits no matter what product or service you sell.
Why?
You will need to understand your customers and shift with their expectations to serve them effectively.
To influence online shopping behavior in your favor, you have to prompt buyers to act.
Other than your products and services, providing a welcoming online experience goes a long way.
A consumer may act when provided a reason to.
Do you have CTAs prompting them to want to do more?
For example, if you have an AR feature on your product page and a user can see what that product will look like in their home, they may be compelled to put it in their cart because you provided a high-level feature for a good user experience.
What they desire or what will enhance their lifestyle is ultimately what they’re looking for.
The customer can change their mind or choose a different course of action between the time they decide to proceed with a decision and the time the action is completed.
You can use A/B testing to see how customers respond to your behavioral marketing tactics.
Once you see how customers react, you now have transactional data to pick up on consumer behavior trends in online shopping.
What Behavior Is Driving Online Shopping?
Converting the cart is the goal.
This we know.
But how do we know what’s driving the ever-evolving expectations of online shopping behavior?
There are many factors that influence the customer’s decision-making process.
For one, visuals are a main driver.
People remember 80% of what they see or do.
So, all your visual content – down to the colors used in your ads – contributes as psychological triggers to converting a sale.
Source: TikTok
One historical force driving consumer behavior trends in online shopping was the COVID-19 pandemic.
This was essentially the rise of the hybrid consumer – those shopping in-store and online.
This new consumer economy attitude drove e-commerce, accounting for much of the retail sales at the time (and now attributing to the growth of worldwide e-commerce and social e-commerce sales).
It was such a different atmosphere where brands experienced how user behavior affects SEO when they had to revamp local SEO and international SEO efforts.
It took new tactics like including more local-based keywords and garnering more reviews to keep up with household name brands (not to mention SEO for Google Ads space).
It altered search trends, which impacted how a business generates leads.
With altered search trends comes altered behavior.
Another behavior stemming from the pandemic is how often people were online.
Not only were people online to keep track of the latest news updates, but they were also on social media.
The fast-paced progression of social e-commerce showed everyone the power of the new platform on the block, TikTok.
Online consumer behavior stemmed from the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, showing how almost half of users were purchasing items they’d seen while scrolling the app.
Source: Twitter
New consumer behavior trends in online shopping are going to cause you to step up your marketing strategy.
Not only to support your sales but to embrace current events, emerging technologies, and most importantly, learn how to create a positive and convenient customer experience.
What We Learned From Our Data
My team and I ran a survey launched in May 2022 to get a feel for what the consumer behavior trends in online shopping are like.
Let’s look at our lessons learned from data insights surrounding online shopping behavior:
Of our respondents, all of them shop online at least once a week.
We had almost an even split of 50/50 men and women providing feedback.
The demographics based on age were also very telling of your potential US shoppers with:
- 12.09% 21-25 years old
- 54.65% 26-41 years old
- 23.88% 42-57 years old
- 9.39% 58-76 years old
Another interesting takeaway is that almost 75% of them have bought something online because they saw it via social media.
Remember those numbers from TikTok I mentioned earlier?
Of the women that responded to this survey, about 70% said that they had bought something they saw on social media.
Of the men surveyed, about 80% said that they had bought something they saw on social media.
From these responses, it appears that men are more likely to purchase something they had seen on social media than women.
About 75% of the 21-25 year olds said they had bought something online because they saw it via social media.
Most would think that age group ordered the most online.
When, in fact, of the 26-41 year olds, 78% said they had bought something online because they saw it via social media.
23% of respondents said that 50% of their purchases are impulse purchases, followed by a little over 22% saying that 75% of purchases are impulse purchases.
Looking at the data by gender, 25% of men said that 75% of their purchases are impulse buys, 22% said that 50% of their purchases are impulse buys, 20% said that 25% of their purchases were impulse buys, and 14% said that 100% of their purchases are impulse buys.
Women led with 25% stating that 50% of their purchases are impulse buys, 22% said that 25% of their purchases are impulse buys, almost 20% said that 75% of their purchases were impulse buys, and 8% said that 100% of their purchases are impulse buys.
While the numbers are similar, we saw that men are more impulsive shoppers than women.
All the respondents younger than 60 were more likely to make more impulsive purchases than those over 60.
That’s probably due to the popularity of haul videos on social media.
Source: TikTok
Content on social media that’s pushed by you, influencers, or user-generated content creators can be very influential to your target audience, considering that haul videos have amassed a 13 times increase in views in the past couple of years.
Over 50% of those surveyed said that they had made a purchase from a haul video.
About 30% of men said they watch haul videos to discover new products they may want to purchase, and 60% of them made purchases.
About 55% of women said, “No, they do not make purchases from haul videos” whereas 45% do. Almost 40% of women say that they watch the haul videos to discover new products that they might want to purchase.
Stores reopening after the pandemic has not had a major impact on online shopping behavior.
Of those surveyed, 40% stated that they are shopping online just the same as they were, another 40% said they are shopping online more, and the remaining 20% are shopping online less.
This just shows that your website needs to be optimized& and always ready for traffic.
You may see new customers influenced by your social media or other content made about your brand.
Think about being prepared, kind of like Amazon has to be.
If 20% of our respondents place 3 orders on Amazon a month, would your business be prepared if you were Amazon?
A little over 15% said they place more than five orders per month.
There’s a true demand based on online shopping behavior.
So, e-commerce businesses need to be ready for online shoppers.
Even as trends change, accessibility and ease of transaction will always be in for customers.
With that said, what exactly makes a site more accessible and easier for transactions regarding customers is going to vary and grow over time.
So, based on our data about online shopping behavior, we predict these are good practices to implement:
- Posting your products online since social e-commerce is convenient for users (For example, this is a great way to funnel in impulse buyers)
- Haul videos created by an influencer or content creator to convert your target audience so be open to affiliate marketing.
- Focusing on the younger generations because they are the age groups mainly shopping online.
Granted, based on your specific industry and customer base, there will likely be more specific trends that you want to follow. These make good starting points for a modern online shopping strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Online shopping is not just a trend, it’s continuing to emerge as a retail playing field. There’s room for growth with providing even better customer satisfaction and social e-commerce evolution online. It’s changed how customers shop and how retailers run their business, especially with the latest digital technologies and tools to meet online shopper demands.
Some of the top e-commerce trends are:
Chatbots to improve the online shopping experience (even acting as personal assistants)
More options to pay like ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ installments.
AR enhancing the shopping experience with a better feel for items without seeing them in person.
Target audience’s response to videos of content showing items (i.e., asking questions, influenced to make a purchase).
Mobile website optimizations for online shopping like mobile payment integrations.
In the late 70s, Michael Aldrich invented electronic shopping. It was just used as a communication tool, but once the internet became a more established hub in 1995, there were 10 million users worldwide. That same year Amazon launched, a few years later PayPal was born, and the future is bright for the industry with a 77% rise in sales year-over-year.
More than one out of every four people is an online shopper. That’s over 2 billion people that are digital buyers. Several people buy online because it’s convenient. Others do so because of the competitive prices offered by some e-commerce sites. When buying online, digital shoppers might be affected by a variety of digital resources, such as company emails and product reviews.
Conclusion
There are so many new consumer behavior trends in online shopping that have blossomed over the years.
It can be a little tough keeping up.
However, the best thing to do is understand the trends and learn your target audience’s online shopping behavior.
It’ll be a key part to how your e-commerce success shapes up.
Once you understand the trends, you can improve your offerings, market the target audience in a way they’ll receive it best, and increase customer loyalty and revenue.
The data we’ve collected can be paired with other psychology of marketing resources to adopt into your marketing strategy.
There are so many opportunities you can set up for an ideal shopping experience and see shoppers convert.
Do you want to understand online consumer behavior a bit better? Ask your questions below, and I’ll give you some tips.