U.S.: post-recession consumer adopts new shopping patterns

Consumers may be emerging from the Great Recession a little more willing to spend these days, but they re still incredibly price-conscious and making smaller, more frequent purchases rather than loading up on costlier bulk goods.

The bargain hunting is a boon to some retailers, such as deep-discount grocery stores, and a growing problem for others, like big-box department stores. That s according to a new 2010 megatrends study released on Tuesday from New York-based WSL Strategic Retail, a consultancy.

Shoppers are making more stops to more stores, said the group s president, Candace Corlett, and doing far more of their shopping online - a behavioral shift accelerated by the recession.

Supermarkets such as Kroger or Wegman s and supercenters like Walmart are still the top two retail channels with 64% of Americans shopping there over the past three months. Department stores such as Macy s slipped to the No. 5 position, just behind dollar stores, which were patroned by some 20% of Americans.

The clear winner in the survey, however, is online shopping, ranked #3 in the findings with nearly half of women - 47% shopping online in the last quarter and 24% shopping online each week, up from 10% who did so in 2008. The internet has become the go-to channel to find the lowest prices and coupons, according to WSL. Growth in online shopping, dollar stores and deep-discount grocery like Sav-a-Lot threaten to diminish the popularity of supercenters like Walmart, said WSL chief executive Wendy Liebmann in the release.

Women are shopping for ingredients to prepare food and avoiding the mass merchandiser where they can be tempted to overspend on the wide array of products, the survey notes.

Almost 70% of Walmart s core shoppers, those with household incomes under $40,000, visited dollar stores in the last three months and a quarter of shoppers are now at such stores each week, WSL says.

In addition, it s not clear the online shopping offered by retailers like Walmart, Target, Costco or Macy s is helping those chains partake in the online-shopping boom: such bricks and clicks sites had 7% or less of their customers buying from their online sites over the past three months. Meanwhile, Amazon.com, the industry leader in online retail, was visited by 57% of online shoppers during the same period, according to WSL.

The internet is redefining choices and significantly impacting every other retail channel, said Ms. Liebmann.