What do online shoppers consider a good discount?

Retailers looking to drive business online by offering discounts need to provide a certain minimum savings.

Forty-three percent of consumers seek out deals when shopping online, according to a new Google/Ipsos poll of U.S. consumers. Few view discounts that are less than 10% off as a good deal. Most respondents view savings of anywhere from 10% to 29% off and 30% to 49% off as discounts that qualify as a good deal.

Also, about half (49%) of respondents will wait at least a month or longer to purchase a non-essential item if they know they can get it on sale at a later date.

Among these respondents, 18% will wait till holiday shopping days to obtain a deal on a non-essential item.

Six in 10 respondents say they plan their purchases when shopping on retailers’ “deal days.” Two in three shop at least monthly, with close to half (30%) of that cohort shopping weekly.

Buyer’s Remorse 

The survey also examined respondent attitudes toward online “buyer’s remorse” – or purchasing something on sale and later regretting it.  Findings are below. 

•More than four in 10 (42%) respondents say they have bought something on sale and then later regretted it.

•Among respondents who have regretted a purchase, 62% regret it because they report not really needing it.

•Other reasons respondents report regretting a purchase include impulse purchasing (42%), having too much stuff already (34%), finding it at a lower price (19%), not doing proper research (17%), and not bothering to compare prices from other stores (13%).

•More than half of respondents (53%) say that being able to price compare across retailer/brands may help prevent buyer’s remorse.

•Lower percentages of respondents say planning to

buy something in advance (37%), getting price drop alerts (28%), seeing if a product is priced high, typical, or low (25%), or seeing how a product’s price has fluctuated over the last 90 days (25%) will help prevent buyer’s remorse.

•Roughly two-thirds of respondents think buyer’s remorse is really about either impulse purchasing (39%) or purchasing an item they don’t really need (25%).

The Google/Ipsos poll was conducted by Ipsos from May 12 to May 14, 2023, based on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,358 adults, age 18 and older.