Comparison Shopping Survey: Consumers Turn to Big Retailers for Info

Comparison shopping is a growing trend right now, especially among online shoppers. According to PPC Hero, consumers are comparison shopping to find the best deals online, and even using their mobile devices to find deals online while also seeing what’s available in stores. Some online retailers and shopping platforms, including Google, Amazon and Nextag, have even started making some product comparison details available right on their websites to make it easier for those looking to compare prices and other information. So how many consumers take part in comparison shopping? We asked 1,000 respondents on August 30-31 about their shopping habits and thoughts on comparison shopping.

Bargain Shopping

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest survey, 74% of respondents said that it’s at least somewhat important to them to get the lowest possible prices when purchasing food. 77% like to get the lowest prices when buying home items. 75% like to get the lowest prices on clothing and accessory purchases. 75% like to get the lowest possible prices on furniture and appliances. 73% said it’s important to them to get the lowest prices on tech purchases. And 72% like to get the lowest prices when buying books or entertainment.

Comparison Shopping

In general, 79% of respondents said that they consider themselves to be bargain shoppers. Another 79% said they actively try to find the lowest prices for items when shopping. And 78% said that they like to compare prices from different stores or sources before making purchases.More specifically, 17% said that they always compare prices from one or more stores or businesses before completing purchases. 41% said they compare prices most of the time before purchasing. 28% do so about half the time. 10% rarely ever compare prices before purchasing. And just 4% said they never do.

Comparison Services

But consumers don’t always have to figure out how to compare prices and other features all on their own. 15% of respondents said that they’ve used multiple different price comparison sites or apps when making purchases. And another 14% said they’ve used one such tool. Amazon, Google, Walmart and eBay were the most popular websites used for consumers who like to compare prices. PriceGrabber, SlickDeals, Nextag and eBates were also mentioned.Overall, 60% of those who have used online price comparison shopping tools said they’ve been at least somewhat satisfied with them. In addition, 40% said they are at least somewhat likely to use comparison shopping sites or apps within the next year.

Key Takeaways

Comparing prices and other details when making purchases is certainly a popular tactic for shoppers. But not many consumers regularly use actual sites or apps designed for that purpose. Those who do were more likely to use comparison tools available from the sources where they actually shop, like Amazon, Walmart and eBay. So for other retailers that want to draw in cost-conscious comparison shoppers, it would seem to be beneficial to make the process really easy for them. Providing a few different options with varying price points or showing a simple comparison tool right on product pages could help customers make better-informed buying decisions. And since many shoppers do like to compare prices and other details before completing purchases, adding such a feature could help businesses speed along the buying process a bit.You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: happy shoppers by zoetnet under CC BY 2.0What do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected on August 30-31 via AYTM’s online survey panel.