In a survey by global business messaging provider- Esendex, across 4,000 international shoppers from the UK, USA, Australia, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, it was found that more than a quarter of Brits (29pc) now make more than 80pc of their purchases online.
However, the retail landscape looked slightly different pre-pandemic, where only 11pc of customers shopped online and now have seen an increase of 18pc.
France (8pc) and Spain (9pc) saw the least change in the rise of online shopping compared to 2020.
The statistics of the survey revealed that customers in the UK, France and Italy are the least patient when it comes to customer service and demand an always-on culture, where they don’t have to wait for hours to receive a response.
The report also highlighted that around 43pc of the shoppers prefer to contact customer service via email, SMS or WhatsApp. The US was the only territory where more than 50pc shoppers would rather get in touch with a company via phone.
Chris Gorman, Head of Professional Services at Esendex, comments: “At the heart of what we discovered is that there’s been a real shift in shopping habits, in the way people are making purchases, and wanting to get in contact with their favourite brands.
“The lesson here is for businesses to ensure they build an omni-channel presence so that customers can stay in touch – and get in touch – with companies via the platform(s) they prefer. Businesses should also look to invest in different ways of improving their customer service response time, through email autoresponders, live chat and chatbots, for example.”