How Often Do People Shop Online?
Understanding consumers’ ecommerce habits is vital to building an effective growth plan for online businesses. Aside from knowing key online shopping statistics about what time and what day of the week they’re most actively shopping, having an idea of how often they shop online can give you greater insight into their digital purchasing patterns.
So, how often do people shop online? Here’s a look at the online shopping frequencies of United States consumers.
How often do people shop online in the US?
Results from a recent survey show that there’s no straightforward answer to the question, “How often do people shop online.” About one-fifth (21%) of surveyed US consumers buy things online once a month or less frequently, while 12% say they do so once a week. Around half (45%) of them purchase items via the internet multiple items a week.
Online shopping is also a daily occurrence for many consumers. 21% of consumers say they buy things online at least once a day. Breaking this down, we see that 10% do so just once, while 11% shop online several times per day. In other words, one out of approximately every five consumers shops online daily.
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These study results also show that despite ecommerce’s rising share of retail sales, there remains a significant number of people that say they have never shopped online—as claimed by 6% of surveyed US consumers.
But one thing is clear—with 94% of the population shopping online at least once a month, it’s no surprise that US ecommerce sales have been rising year after year.
The main driver of online shopping is convenience. 33% of US consumers list it as a reason to acquire items over the internet. This is followed by the fast (31%) and free or low-cost shipping (28%) options available.
Simply understanding how often consumers shop online in the US isn’t enough if your goal is to build and grow your brand. This is because online shopping preferences vary from generation to generation, so strategies catered to your target audience are needed.
For instance, the most popular online shopping category among Gen Z shoppers is clothing and shoes—bought online by 57% of Gen Z consumers. On the other hand, just 27% of baby boomers buy these products online, with more of them (35%) preferring to do so in-store.