Being able to save time by not going through stores is the second important reason, after price, for consumers to choose to shop via the web. This is particularly important for food products (53%), but also for travel (57%). Although not largely developed, grocery online shopping makes continuous steps into conquering the market and becoming a general habit.
With the diversification of market players, typical concerns such as those referring to perishable and frozen goods have disappeared. Therefore, busy customers with large families prefer to pay the extra fees for delivery in order to get the dietary items on their doorstep simply because they lack the time to go through huge supermarkets, with enormous shopping lists, running between the stands and filling carts. Another explanation comes from the emergence of bio dietary products. More and more people turn to this lifestyle while retailers do not succeed to keep up with demand and lead way for online stores to conquer this sector.
Other areas where the opportunity for time saving provided by the web appears to be an important factor are: cultural goods and nursery products (50%), but also home appliances (45%), do-it-yourself (44%) and toys (41%). The web has become the main venue to shop for airline and concert tickets. Within the digitalized era we live in, a printed ticket or simply your ID are enough to travel by plane or to enter a concert.
Conversely, the sectors that prove to be less sensitive to this argument are leather goods (14%), automotive equipment (19%) and clothing (22%). For these three sectors, time saving is not essential for the process of purchase especially because they are the core of the shopping experience. Men love shopping for their cars as much as women love clothes shopping. Shoes and clothes are more likely to be bought in brick and mortar shops where customers can try them on and see how they look.