Retail

54% of US consumers ready to buy apparel in store: study

15 May '20

3 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

As US stores reopen, a recent First Insight study found 54 per cent of US consumers are ready to buy apparel in store, followed by home improvement (36 per cent) and footwear (32 per cent). However, the purchase experience will likely look much different than it did before COVID-19, although millennials feel the safest re-entering shopping environment.

First Insight is a customer-driven digital product testing solution for brands and retailers.

Sixty five per cent of women respondents said they will not feel safe trying on clothes in dressing rooms, 78 per cent would not feel safe testing beauty products and 66 per cent would not feel safe working with a sales associate.

By comparison, 54 per cent of men said they would not feel safe trying on clothes in dressing rooms, 64 per cent would not feel safe testing beauty products and 54 per cent would not be comfortable working with a sales associate.

Millennials feel the safest returning to the shopping environment overall. Only 49 per cent of millennials surveyed said they would not feel safe trying on clothes in dressing rooms compared to 71 per cent of baby boomers. Similarly, 58 per cent of millennials would not feel safe testing beauty products compared to 86 per cent of baby boomers, and 48 per cent of millennials would not feel safe working with a sales associate, versus 72 per cent of baby boomers.

“While many shoppers seem ready to go back in-store, particularly to buy clothing, the experience is anything but business-as-usual,” Greg Petro, chief executive officer of First Insight said in a statement.

Respondents felt that hand sanitiser and limiting the amount of people in-store (80 per cent respectively) and wearing a facemask (79 per cent) would make them feel the safest. Temperature checks (69 per cent), self-checkout (69 per cent) and farther distances between product racks or shelving (68 per cent) ranked less important to consumers when considering safety of shopping experiences in-store.

The worry about the novel cronavirus is subsiding slightly, with 76 per cent of respondents being worried on April 30, versus 82 per cent on April 20.

The percentage of consumers cutting back on spending due to coronavirus decreased, with 58 per cent of respondents reporting cutbacks in spending on April 30 compared to 62 per cent on April 20.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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