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The Osservatorio Multicanalità survey, conducted by the School of Management at Milan’s Polytechnic University in cooperation with Nielsen, is back again this year. The latest research was presented on October 4 at the Bovisa Campus at Milan Polytechnic, during a meeting entitled “The Touchpoint Evolution: towards the convergence of communication and sales spaces”, and it showed that Internet and digital media are playing an increasingly prominent role in the purchasing habits of Italians.
In Italy, the number of multichannel consumers, i.e. those who use e-commerce services or for whom digital media feature in their purchasing process – now number 35.5 million (the equivalent of 67% of all over-14s). This figure is up by seven percent points on the 31.7 million recorded in 2017, after five years of stable results.
Four user categories
Of the different types of multichannel user, eShoppers are the category that has grown most rapidly. These are people who use the Internet in all the stages of their purchasing process, and in 2018 they numbered 23.1 million, 2.5 million more than the 20.6 million recorded in 2017.
Everywhere Shoppers account for the largest proportion (6.6 million) of eShoppers. They are the most advanced consumers who, in their relationships with the different brands, will move freely between channels.
But Cherry Pickers, i.e. more conservative users who are approaching the world of e-commerce for the first time, are the group that has grown the most (+1.9 million versus 2017).
The increase in the number of InfoShoppers, i.e. those who go online just to gather information but not to make a purchase, is less marked. This group has increased by just 1.3 million since last year, to reach a total of 12.4 million.
These four categories, identified by the survey, behave in different ways in the various steps of the purchasing process.
In the pre-purchase phase, for example, 95% of Everywhere Shoppers use the Internet to find information, and 92% to compare prices, as opposed to 89% and 76% of Money Savers and 92% and 85% of Pragmatic users, respectively. The values recorded by Cherry Pickers, on the other hand, are much lower (4% and 3% respectively).
PCs are still the devices most often used when making online purchases, being used by 76% of Everywhere Shoppers, 80% of Money Savers, 72% of Cherry Pickers, and 79% of the Pragmatic group. However, they are tending to be used less than before, to the advantage of smartphones, which are used by 61% of Everywhere Shoppers (+4 percent points), 36% of Money Savers (+4 percent points), 39% of Cherry Pickers (+12 percent points), and 45% of Pragmatic individuals (+6 percent points).
The importance of traditional stores
The research also focused on the various eShoppers’ purchasing behaviour within specific commodity sectors: Consumer Goods, Electronics and IT, Pharmaceuticals, and Clothing.
In the Consumer Goods sector, it emerged that the traditional store still plays a key role in the purchasing process. Indeed, almost six eShoppers in ten (58%) prefer to buy directly in a store, without having found out about the product online beforehand, while almost one in three (32%) will purchase in a store having first done some research on the Internet. Finally, only 10% of shoppers prefer to buy online, and half of these will have first visited a store to find out about the product.
It was found that Cherry Pickers are the category most likely to buy a product from a physical outlet without going online for information first (70%, +12 percent points compared with the average rate for eShoppers), whereas Everywhere Shoppers are, among all eShoppers, the ones most inclined to purchase online, regardless of whether they look for information online or offline (+4 percent points compared with the average for eShoppers).
A similar pattern emerges on analysing the Pharmaceuticals sector: 58% of eShoppers prefer to purchase in a physical store without looking for information online, 27% find out about products on the Internet before purchasing in a store, while only 14% purchase directly online, and around half of this group do so without having first sought information offline.
In the Clothing sector the percentage of shoppers who prefer to purchase online is higher: 11% do so without first looking for information offline, while 18% make online purchases after first going into a store to actually see the product; instead, 46% buy directly in a physical store without having first done Internet searches, while the proportion buying in a store after getting information online is one in four. In this sector, too, Everywhere Shoppers emerge as the consumers who feel most comfortable using digital channels for online purchases (+9 percent points for those who purchase after first getting information offline, and +5 percent points. for those who do not first seek information offline).
In the Electronics and IT sector, on the other hand, there emerges a much greater inclination to purchase on online. Here, more than one eShopper in three (36%) chooses to buy online after first seeing the product in a store, while 21% purchase on eCommerce platforms without visiting a physical store first. The rest of the sample is split between those who prefer to buy electronic goods in a store after first gathering information from the Internet (32%), and those who instead opt to buy from a store without first looking for information about the product on the Internet (11%). In the Everywhere Shoppers group, 72% prefer to buy online (42% after seeing the product in a store, 30% without calling at a store first ). In the Money Savers and Pragmatic groups, the proportions of consumers who buy online after seeing the product in a store (38% and 37%), or purchase in a store after first looking online (38% and 32%), are similar. Finally, some Cherry Pickers prefer to buy in a store after first obtaining information online (40%), while others purchase online after first going into a store for information (28%).
The influence of mass media
The Osservatorio Multicanalità survey also analysed the behaviour of Italian consumers in terms of their use of mass media. The analysis was based on data processing and estimates performed by Nielsen using the panels on which Auditel and Audiweb measurements are based.
According to the results of the analysis, 2018 saw an increase in the number of consumers reached through television, whereas the previously observed dispersion of the audience between the different types of TV and digital channels slowed down somewhat.
General TV, which in 2018 reached 66.5% of the Italian population as a whole (+3.6 percent points compared with the previous survey), largely accounted for the increased share recorded by television. A slightly higher proportion of InfoShoppers (78.4%) compared with eShoppers (76.4%) were reached through television.
Similarly, only slight differences were found when analysing the amount time spent in front of the television: InfoShoppers spent more time watching TV, as much as 361.4 minutes per day, followed by Money Savers (337.5 minutes), Cherry Pickers (335.7), Pragmatic consumers (322.1) and Everywhere Shoppers (307.4). The increase in the use of television, as well as different rates between the different groups of consumers, were trends also seen for digital channels, which in 2018 recorded an average daily media reach of 52.1% among InfoShoppers (this represents 23.8% of all those who use a PC and 44.9% of all those who use a mobile phone to shop), a full ten percentage points lower than the rate recorded among Everywhere Shoppers (62.1%, or 30.7% of all PC users and 53.8% of all mobile phone users). This result confirms that, also as regards the use of media, the behaviours in this latter segment are increasingly advanced and fragmented.
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