Shoppers are on board with retailers using technology to get to know them better, so long as they don’t get too personal with them.
Among 1,000 U.S. shoppers surveyed, more than 60% say they’re comfortable with providing retailers information so that the retailers can better serve them, according to the newly released “Creepy or Cool” report from personalization and recommendations vendor RichRelevance, which surveyed more than 3,500 shoppers in the U.S., Germany, the United Kingdom and France.
However, just 22.53% of U.S. consumers replied “yes” to allowing retailers to collect more data, and 40.28% said they’re OK with it only if they remain anonymous. The younger the consumer, the more willing they are to share personal data: 27.75% of shoppers in the 18-29 age range said yes compared with 18.23% of those over 60 who said they’re willing to hand over more personal data so that retailers can provide a more personalized shopping experience.
Here’s how U.S. shoppers compared to other shoppers when it comes to providing retailers information:
[infogram id=”percentage_of_shoppers_who_are_okay_with_sharing_data_with_retailers” prefix=”k1X” format=”interactive” title=”Percentage of shoppers who are okay with sharing data with retailers”]
There also is a limit to how well shoppers want retailers to know them. 69% of U.S. shoppers say they find the idea of retailers choosing products for them based on past purchase history to be “creepy,” while only 15% say it’s “cool.”
When it comes to customer service, U.S. shoppers say they would feel better about knowing there’s a human being on the other end of an online chat, rather than a chatbot providing answers based on artificial intelligence technology. 50% say they view using chatbots to handle customer service issues as “creepy,” while 23% say it’s “cool.”
RichRelevance’s data shows that U.S. shoppers also are ready to utilize voice technology to search for items and place orders, with 46% saying the idea is “cool,” 22% saying its “creepy” and 32% saying they’re indifferent to the idea.
Meanwhile, 42% of all U.S. shoppers say they find the idea of a retailer implementing technology that allows them to automatically pay for items in their shopping cart without going through a traditional checkout process to be “creepy.” 46% say they’re on board with retailers using fingerprint scanning to store their information so that they can pay for a product and have it delivered to their home while in a store location.
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