Study: Shoppers making smaller, more frequent purchases

New York City A study released Tuesday by WSL Strategic Retail found that today’s consumers are making smaller, more frequent purchases rather than buying costlier bulk items.

The 2010 “megatrends” study also found that shoppers are doing far more of their buying online, a shift that has been accelerated by the recession.

Supermarkets such as Kroger or Wegman’s and supercenters such as Walmart are still the top two retail “channels,” with 64% of Americans shopping there over the past three months. According to the study, department stores such as Macy’s slipped to the No. 5 position, just behind dollar stores, which were patronized by about 20% of Americans.

The clear winner in the survey, however, is online shopping, ranked No. 3 in the findings with nearly half of women -- 47% -- shopping online in the last quarter and 24% shopping online each week, up from 10% who did so in 2008. The Internet “has become the go-to channel to find the lowest prices and coupons,” according to WSL.

“Growth in online shopping, dollar stores and “deep-discount” grocery such as Sav-a-Lot threaten to diminish the popularity of supercenters like Walmart,” said WSL CEO Wendy Liebmann.

Almost 70% of Walmart’s “core shoppers,” those with household incomes under $40,000, visited dollar stores in the last three months and a quarter of shoppers are now at such stores each week, WSL research found.

In addition, it’s not clear the online shopping offered by retailers such as Walmart, Target, Costco or Macy’s is helping those chains partake in the online-shopping boom: Such “bricks and clicks” sites had 7% or less of their customers buying from their online sites over the past three months. Meanwhile, Amazon.com, the industry leader in online retail, was visited by 57% of online shoppers during the same period, according to WSL.

“The Internet is redefining … choices and significantly impacting every other retail channel,” said Liebmann.