• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, June 15, 2023

North American consumers are going online to buy products, book travel, conduct banking and stream entertainment, and it’s unlikely they will turn back, judging by the Global Consumer Trends Report, North American Edition, a study by Moengage. 

Of the consumers polled, 55.8% prefer to buy new products via mobile apps and websites. But 53.6% visit an app or website more than three times before making an online purchase: only 7.2% buy the first time. 

It depends on the person’s age: 44% over the age of 44 prefer to buy new products in physical stores.  

The preferred shopping mechanisms are:

• Mobile app — 34% 
• Physical stores — 25.6% 
• Mobile websites — 21.8%
• Desktop websites — 17.6% 
• Social media — 1%

A third of shoppers buy groceries online at least once a week. 

Despite all that, 49% of consumer spending in North America has been on entertainment platforms, including streaming videos, playing games and on lifestyle platforms. For millennials, 61.8% of consumer spending goes toward entertainment platforms. 

How do they choose to stream music, movies and videos? They use:

• TV—52.8%
• Smartphones (mobile application & website)—32.8% 
• Desktop Website—10.2% 
• Tablet—4.2%

Of the consumers surveyed, 58.6% stream content daily, 24.6% 3-4 times per week, 9.6% once weekly and 7.2% only on weekends.  

On the banking and finance front, there has been 33% growth in customer stickiness for Fintech platforms. 

Of the consumers using them, 55% do so to view balances, review account activity and deposit checks. Visits are made daily by 20.2% and two to three times a week by 33.8%. Another 19.6% visit once a week, 18.2% once a month and 8.2% every 15 days.  

Travel and Hospitality also enjoys wide online popularity: 58.8% of North American consumers prefer to get information from Travel websites on mobile and desktop. They obtain it from: 

A travel website on mobile — 36%
A travel website on desktop — 22.8%
A travel app on mobile — 20.8%
Social media (Reddit/Instagram/Twitter/Facebook) — 20.4% 

Ride-hailing and cab services are also widely used:

• Every 15 days — 65%
• 3-4 times a week — 14.8% 
• Once a week — 12.8% 
• Daily — 7.4% 

In general, 44% of North American consumers spend two to four hours online daily, excluding work, while 28.4% are online five to six hours per day. For 19.2%, the total is six hours a day, and only 8.4% report less than two hours on a given day. 

Moengage analyzed the activities of 1.3 billion consumers online and surveyed 3,200+ shoppers.