Understanding the path a consumer follows when it comes to buying a product or service is not an A to B situation. There are many factors that are constantly changing the way consumers are spending their money. Theresa O’Neil, Senior Vice President of Marketing, at PowerReviews conducted a survey over just over 1,000 people to assess the state of retail in the ecommerce industry and found some insightful statistics.

• 2.2% increase in overall retail
• 15.2% ecommerce growth in Q1 of 2016
• 7.8% increase in e-commerce in the retail industry

With this we can assume the growth of online retail is going to increase quickly with the coming years but do not be fooled. Brick and mortar shops are still necessary as they offer an experience that online shopping does not. Check out 10 ways to improve buyer experience here.

Through their study, Theresa found that there are three main types of shoppers and make up the pool of buyers.

The Amazon shopper is the first type, where 38% of people begin their online shopping journey. The shoppers uses the platform due to a variey of reasons but the top reasons were: better deals and and free shipping. After the monetary and diversity reasons comes the volume of reviews and search capabilities. This is what sets Amazon apart from its competitors. Many retailers can not match Amazon’s enormous amount of reviews and that is how they differentiate themselves.

The second type of shopper is the Google shopper making up 35% of the consumers. Of those consumers, 52% would continue shopping on the Google shopping page and 41% would go on a retailer site. How does this affect your business? Ratings and reviews can highly impact the ranking of your product: the higher your rating and reviews, the higher your products would be on the Google search list.

The last type makes up 21% of buyers and those are brand and retail site shoppers. These shoppers are online because they know exactly what they want. Looking into the sites you will also find review features that can make or break the sale. 65% of shoppers will buy online. What does the remaining 35% do? Fortunately 48% browse online but still purchase in-store while 20% go elsewhere.

From these three types you can see that people are shopping online much more but physical locations are essential as they give people something to hold onto. If you’re wondering how to turn bad reviews to good ones look here. Even ecommerce giant Amazon is putting up bookstores around North America. All of these types of shoppers do rely on reviews to help make their decisions. So as a retailer you must understand that reviews are beneficial to growing and spreading the word of your business.

Listen to the original webinar here.