Consumers view shopping as both an offline and online experience; however, a January 2022 survey from Morning Consult found consumers still favor shopping in stores over shopping online. In-store shopping ranged from 82% for groceries and household goods to 52% for personal electronics. Personal electronics was also first among online shoppers at 38% and apparel, shoes and accessories were second at 30%.
Regardless of where consumers shop, radio delivers the audience directly, according to data from five representative 2021 consumer/market surveys conducted by The Media Audit.
Adults 18+ with heavy exposure to radio (180+ minutes during an average day) and who made an in-store purchase at any of seven different retail verticals (see table below) during the past four weeks were slightly older, on average, than those who made an online purchase, or 43.6 and 41.6, respectively.
Those making an online purchase, however, had a significantly larger average household income ($76,400) than in-store shoppers ($70,200).
In-store jewelry purchasers had the largest average household income at $74,000 and children’s clothing was the smallest average at $65,500. Consumers purchasing jewelry online also had the largest average household income at $82,500 while pet supplies purchasers had the smallest average household income at $65,200.
Almost all of the in-store purchasers who were heavily exposed to radio over-indexed in the seven retail verticals and some by more than 100% and many by more than 30%.
“Our data shows radio is very effective at reaching a diversity of consumers. The youngest adults, on average, were purchasing jewelry (41.3) and children’s clothing 41.2) in a store while the oldest adults were purchasing pet supplies (47.4) and auto parts (44.9),” said Jeff Stein, Vice President/Director of Sales, The Media Audit. “Those purchasing children’s clothing and sporting goods were the youngest online shoppers at 38.8 and 39.0 years of age, respectively.”
The second table reinforces radio’s excellent reach as seen in the first table above. The consumers making purchases online, over-index significantly in many of these seven retail verticals and across all five markets.
Radio’s reach is legendary and has withstood all the changes in media for decades. The Media Audit data supports how powerful radio can be for retailers in these seven verticals, whether in-store or online, which only means it is just as powerful for most all other retail verticals.