Spanish consumers have welcomed with great interest the “return to normality” after the months of the pandemic, as stated Adyen in its Adyen Report on Retail 2021, which reveals that seven out of ten consumers surveyed prefer to make their purchases in physical stores. This report, prepared in October 2021 through direct surveys of consumers and retailers in Spanish territory, provides an interesting photograph of the preferences of consumers in our country based on their autonomous communities of residence.
“In general, the data that we have collected in our surveys show that Spaniards have become more demanding when buying, both online and in physical stores, and give priority to technological advantages and the convenience of the process over the price“, Explain Juan José Llorente, Country Manager of Adyen in Spain and Portugal. However, according to the data collected by Adyen, we see that the Canaries, Cantabrians and Castilian-Leonese are the ones who most tend towards buying in physical stores, while the Basques, Madrid and Andalusians prefer to buy online.
In this report it can be observed that in Aragon (70%), Asturias (60%), Castilla la Mancha (56%) or Castilla y León (55%) the population seems more aware of supporting local commerce. This tendency towards the physical and the closeness to the expected Christmas campaigns is observed especially in locations such as Canary Islands (86%), Cantabria (81%) or Castilla y León (80%), in front of communities like Basque Country (52%), Madrid (48%) or Andalusia (46%) where, In counterpart, online shopping has increased.
An increasingly demanding and technological consumer
The level of demand of consumers has been transformed forever. In fact, the majority of Spaniards (87%) consider that they will not buy in stores where they have had a bad shopping experience, either online or in store. According to the report Adyen on Retail 2021 the most demanding consumers are in Cantabria (100%), Extremadura (97%) Region of Murcia (96%).
“Offer buyers the payment method of your choice it’s essential. In our country, almost half of those surveyed want to choose between several methods at the time of payment, and 41% consider that businesses should facilitate it”, Clarifies Llorente. When approaching the purchase abandonment Because they do not have their favorite payment methods, Madrilenians lead with 72%, followed by Andalusians with 53% and Catalans with 41%.
Although the main option is credit / debit cards (83%), 23% of those surveyed in our country do not use physical cards and trust mobile phones or digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. Among the respondents who trust more in digital payment methods such as e-wallets, the communities with the highest figures are Navarra (33%), Madrid (32%) and Castilla la Mancha (31%). However, Catalonia (17%), Asturias (16%) and Castilla y León (15%) are the least adapted to these payment methods.
While other communities pay more attention to the convenience of the shopping experience than to the prices of the products themselves, this occurs especially in La Rioja (86%), Navarra (67%) and Región de Murcia (65%). For their part, the communities that pay the least attention to the shopping experience are Extremadura 37%, the Balearic Islands (36%) and Castilla y León (32%).
On the other hand, when opting for e-commerce such as Amazon, instead of smaller and closer sites because they trust more in their delivery capacity, communities such as the Balearic Islands (43%), Castilla la Mancha (42%) and Madrid (31%) stand out above the others, while in Castilla y León (14%), Región de Murcia (13%) or La Rioja (14%) are the ones that least decide on these options when it comes to to buy.
For their part, other autonomous communities with the highest rate of aging according to the National Institute of Statistics, such as Asturias (42%) or Castilla y León (33%) among others, are among the last places when it comes to knowing whether they regularly shop via Internet.
The delivery versus physical experience
In Spain, 39% of those surveyed use more takeout apps. The food delivery service has been the way for bars and restaurants to continue working despite the restrictions. The immediate consequence has been that the demand for this type of restaurant services increases especially in large communities such as Madrid, but that in turn these services are spread throughout the territory.
The community that leads the podium with 45% of people who use the most apps such as Deliveroo, JustEat or Uber Eats is Andalusia, Madrid is below with 44% and the Region of Murcia is just third with 43%.
In light of these data, it is really interesting to see how Spanish consumers evolve at the same time that technological advances do. “They are increasingly aware of the facilities that exist in the market and are willing to demand them when making purchases, whether in physical or online commerce. For retailers, it is therefore essential to take note of these preferences in order to respond to the needs of their customers.”Concludes Llorente.