While the rise of the Internet has empowered customers, businesses have had to modify how they interact with consumers to fit the trend.
Well-informed consumers have presented challenges for businesses, said Steven Kirn, executive director at UF’s David F. Miller Center for Retailing Education and Research. This has caused businesses to rethink how they approach their target audience.
“If you’re a retailer, you got to provide them something which goes beyond what they can read on the Internet,” he said.
This is in line with a study about shopping habits conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, a private services firm. The annual survey showed marked increase in the number of people who research before they buy.
Angie Mohr, manager at Ward’s Supermarket, said the change has allowed consumers to become more familiar with the store.
Clement Asiamah, assistant manager at Finish Line, said it’s a win-lose situation. More people shop online, which takes away from in-store sales, but the store’s employees still have the upper hand with a product’s details.
“Customers definitely do have knowledge, but the only thing they don’t have knowledge about is sometimes the product itself,” he said.
Others think consumers are not becoming any more slick.
Michael Morris, the program director for the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UF, wrote in an email that real information is becoming harder to distinguish. This can be the result of prominent, paid websites.
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 2/24/2015 under the headline “Consumers becoming savvier in digital era”]
