‘Super-shoppers’ shaping online retail

Worldpay has discovered that 13 percent of the world's internet shoppers account for nearly two-thirds of all consumer spending on goods online and that these ‘super-shoppers’ buying habits could impact the rest of the consumer market.

The survey of 20,000 consumers from 10 different countries found that high frequency ‘super-shoppers’ accounted for 62 percent of all spending on physical goods bought online last year and 92 percent of all monthly spending on physical goods bought on the internet, even though they only represent 13 percent of consumers worldwide.

Worldpay states that these ‘super-shoppers’, which represent only 8 percent of the general population, tend to be concentrated in high-growth and development markets, with Brazil leading the pack for Internet shopaholics, with 25 percent of its population of Internet users falling into the ‘super-shopper’ category, followed by the US (18 percent) and Mexico (15 percent).

On average, ‘super-shoppers are 37 years old and tend to be in the upper income class of their home country, and over the last 12 months they spent 258.7 billion pounds on everything from clothes to leisure good and electronics, compared to just 160.7 billion pounds among the remaining consumers.

The buying power of this group of ‘super-shoppers, of which 34 percent are millennials, is explained by the frequency and value of their shopping habits, with almost a quarter spending between 100 pounds and 150 pounds the last time they shopped online, and 13 percent of them spent over 200 pounds.

These ‘super-shoppers’ (52 percent) also prefer to pay by credit card, which is 10 percent more than the all-shopper global average of 42 percent. They overwhelmingly preferred credit cards, even in markets where credit card use is low. For instance, 70.5 percent of German ‘super-shoppers’ used a credit card the last time they shopped online, compared to the national average of 36 percent.

The research also showed a potential downside of the ‘super-shopper’ consumer to online retailers in terms of lost revenue, as 38 percent reported that they had reached the checkout stage for an item and found they couldn’t use their preferred payment method to buy. In instances like this, 52 percent said they bought the same item from a different website, and a remarkable 17 percent said they went out to buy from a physical shop. Worldpay estimates that the cost to each retailer of a lost transaction could be as much as 100 pounds, representing a significant amount of lost revenue from such frequent and high-value shoppers.