Customers cite product availability, ease of delivery for browsing in store, buying online

CHICAGO – One in three shoppers entering stores operated by the nation’s largest retail chains supplement their visits within a day with a purchase at Amazon.com, according to a new report that seeks to quantify the showrooming phenomenon.

Product availability and ease of delivery were the main reasons cited by shoppers who browsed in stores before buying online, according to the report from Numerator, a market research firm.

Numerator estimates that about three-quarters of shoppers at rivals Walmart, Target and Costco Wholesale also shop at Amazon.

The showrooming phenomenon emerged early in the last decade, prompting big retailers to fight back by matching online prices and transforming their stores into extensions of their own websites, adding pickup locations, free deliveries, and in-store centers to serve online shoppers.

The Numerator report found that 53% of Walmart shoppers made an Amazon purchase within a day of shopping at a Walmart store, compared to the 38% of both Target and Costco shoppers who did so.

Thirty percent of Walmart-to-Amazon shoppers said they made the Amazon purchase due to lack of product availability in-store. For Target shoppers, the figure is 24%, according to the report.

Nearly one-third of both Target and Walmart shoppers claimed “ease of delivery” as their reason for buying on Amazon – despite being in the brick-and-mortar store that same day.

Lower prices were cited as the reason for shopping on Amazon by 22% of Walmart shoppers and 20% of Target shoppers.

Nearly a quarter of Target customers who followed a store visit with a purchase at Amazon.com said they had already searched for the products on Amazon before visiting the store. The same was true for 17% of Walmart shoppers, Numerator said.

General merchandise comprises the majority of leaked sales to Amazon, with more than half of such sales coming from four categories: home and garden, consumer electronics, health and beauty, and apparel.