Survey sheds light on SA consumers’ online habits

DO YOU shop online? Do you consult your cellphone, laptop or iPad before you purchase anything, be it groceries, clothes or electronics? If you answer yes, you are a modern South African consumer and retailers want to know all about you and the things you can be enticed to spend your cash on.

They also want to know exactly how you interact with technology and what your attitude and outlook on life, brands and business is.

To help them on their way, the latest Ipsos Global Trends Survey has found that most South African consumers believe there is “no life without technology” and that “lagging behind is not an option”.

The survey, conducted in 33 countries including South Africa and featuring 22 000 respondents, discovered that people “constantly looking at their screens” not only “enrich their lives”, but simply can’t imagine a life without technology.

Hendrik van Blerk and Tasnim Kolia said on the eve of the SA Council of Shopping Centres’ annual congress that the modern consumer was put under a microscope as retailers tried to future-proof their businesses. Also, that they’re using Cloud for Marketing solutions (including marketing analytics and marketing technology) to do it.

Among the findings by Ipsos are that in a complex world, 70% of local consumers desire a life of greater ease and simplicity, compared with China (88%), the US (57%) and UK (60%). Some 67% of South African consumers are driven by “an innate hunger for success, personal and professional, but suffer the tension between their deep ambition and affordability”.

Ipsos said 82% of South Africans who use technology to shop are “increasingly seeking new and positive sources of inspiration from unexpected sources.” In their quest not to be left behind, they constantly try new technologies and 52% of them strive to keep up to date with technology.