Click and Regret: How physical retail can encourage more mindful purchases

Since it really took off in 2014, the success of Black Friday in the UK has very much focused on bricks and mortar retail, with only 33% of all Black Friday sales being transacted online. Fast forward four years and in 2018
online sales accounted for 61% of all Black Friday sales, increasing on average 8% year-on-year. The focus for retailers to take an omnichannel approach, in this time-dependent shopping event, is obvious for those looking to make Black Friday a success. The need for an effective online solution that entices customers to make immediate decisions, convincing consumers that they ‘need’ a certain item, is part of the strategy some adopt and execute very effectively. Interestingly, there are no recorded figures for all those items returned and refunded immediately after the event, impacting on the December Christmas trading figures.

To pre-empt the online frenzy that has now become Black Friday, in October, my agency Gekko conducted research to ascertain shopper motivations towards online spending and in particular the immediate fix online shopping offers, which usually results in a euphoric retail therapy high leading – for some – to immediate regret and guilt. Not surprisingly for me, it revealed the shocking waste now involved with online shopping. According to the survey, an estimated £641 million is the astonishing figure consumers are wasting online every year buying goods they don’t want and which they subsequently fail to return.

The survey of 2,000 UK adults conducted by One Poll on behalf of Gekko reveals that 27% of respondents (equating to 12.4 million UK adults) order goods online they regret buying but never get round to returning. The average amount wasted every year is £51.90 per person equating to £641 million overall. Nearly a third of UK adults (31%) also confess to being lured into buying items they don’t want or need and 70% regularly regret buying things online so send them back.

Despite people seemingly unable to resist the temptation of spending money online, nearly half felt that the ease of shopping online fuels extensive shopping habits, and 43% said they also spend more money online than they originally intended.

Although internet shopping is meant to be time efficient, a whopping 65% said they spent more time shopping online than they expected because there’s too much choice, they want to hunt for the best prices (54%) and they feel compelled to shop around (34%).

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