Amount of time Brits spend reading online reviews revealed


Amount of time Brits spend reading online reviews revealed

An online review platform has discovered the shopping tasks and items Brits research the most before committing to a purchase.

According to Psydro’s data, consumers spend 20 hours a year, or 52.5 days in a lifetime, deciding what takeaway to buy, on average. Buying a car was found to be the task shoppers dedicate the most time to, at 2 hours and 32 minutes. However, the average Brit only buys a car once every three years, whereas the average consumer buys a takeaway twice a month.

Psydro surveyed more than 2,000 Brits aged between 18 and 60 years old to find out how long consumers dedicate to researching reviews, as well as consumer attitudes’ towards online retail, following a year that saw internet sales increase by 99 per cent on average (according to Statista).

The shopping tasks that consumers spend the most time reading reviews for are:

  • Buying a car – 2 hour 32 minutes
  • Buying a computer/laptop – 1 hour 47 minutes
  • Booking a hotel room – 1 hour 8 minutes
  • Finding a local takeaway – 50 minutes
  • Buying new skincare/makeup – 45 minutes

2021 also marks the first year adult toys feature as one of the top five most researched consumer tech items, with consumers spending 47 minutes on average reading reviews on them before purchasing.

Other findings show that in the last 12 months, just under three quarters of under 35s (72 per cent) have less trust in online retail compared to before the pandemic.

When asked why their trust has decreased, the most popular responses were ‘late deliveries’ (54 per cent), followed by ‘bad communication’ (37 per cent), and ‘lost deliveries’ (9 per cent).

Respondents also identified what elements of a review will deter them from purchasing an item, more than half (51 per cent) said reports of a ‘faulty item/poor user experience’, a fifth (19 per cent) said ‘poor value for money’ and ‘poor customer service’ (17 per cent) and a tenth (11 per cent) said ‘poor communication’.

Tony Ward, founder of Psydro, said: “The main reason for conducting this research was to look into the shopping habits of Brits, and understand how important reviews are to the purchasing decision. It was shocking to see just how much time consumers dedicate to reading other people’s experiences, especially when you extrapolate it over a lifetime, but then again, we do love a good takeaway!

“It was interesting to see that the majority of shoppers under 35 trust online retailers less compared to 12 months ago, which is no doubt a big shift, and when you take into account what consumers value, it really reinforces how important brand reputation and the user experience is, perhaps more so now than ever.”

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