Nearly a third of UK shoppers want Amazon to open bricks-and-mortar stores in the country, with many people dissatisfied with the current state of high streets, according to a new survey.
The survey, carried out by retail marketing company Live & Breathe, indicates that more than one in five people (22 per cent), high streets were seen merely as places where they went to meet and socialise with their friends, while nearly one in three simply went there to window-shop and browse for goods to buy.
Despite being criticised over its recent tax affairs, nearly a third of those polled, 31 per cent, want Amazon to start opening physical shops.
The agency’s research shows that while many consumers are worried about the high street disappearing, only half of us actually spend their money there.
Despite nearly three-quarters of those who answered the survey claiming to care about the future of the high street, half of those questioned felt that independent shops were more expensive than the major retailing conglomerates which are widely blamed for killing off the diversity of shopping in town centres.
And in spite of claiming to support independent retailers, 30 per cent of survey participants said they would be happy to buy their groceries from Amazon, were it to launch an online a British version of the online grocery service it recently unveiled in America.
Nick Gray, managing director of Live & Breathe, said: “Shoppers face a tough decision – they want to support their high street but they also seem to believe it’s more expensiveand provides less choice.
“Shoppers have romantic memories of high street shopping but they’re still buying online. There’s a massive disconnect between what the shoppers say they want and what they’re doing.”
The survey comes just days after Amazon was named one of the most popular brands among 16 to 34 year-olds.
Source: http://www.liveandbreathe.co.uk/
