Who doesn’t love a good survey?

Smack in the middle of the holiday shopping season, we’re jazzed up to announce the release of our North American omnichannel report, titled, “Great Omnichannel Expectations.”

Earlier this year, we published a report titled, “The Omni-Illusion,” which studied consumer sentiment in Europe. This new report is based on a survey of 1,000 consumers in the U.S. and Canada.

The goal is to get a sense of how consumers feel about the shopping experience in stores, compared to shopping online. For retailers, there are more than a few surprises, and even some common myths busted.

Here’s one nugget. We all tend to think that men and women have their traditional shopping roles. Women are the “browsers,” and men are the purposeful, prepared shoppers, right? Well, it turns out that in this era of omnichannel, men and women are similarly prepared, doing about the same amount of online research about products before they go into a store.

This means that retailers need to ensure that their brick-and-mortar and online stores are well integrated, positioned to deliver a seamless shopping experience for the customer.

Here are the broader themes this report explores:

Interested in learning more? Just go here to download the report.

The great thing is that we asked consumers essentially the same questions in both Europe and North America, and are doing similar research in other markets. So, we’ll soon have more to share about a global comparison report that looks that the preferences of consumers worldwide.

iVend Retail offers a complete omnichannel retail management solution to address the above challenges and opportunities, and work with retailers’ needs today. We’re looking forward to discussing the report in full at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show, the retail industry’s flagship event, held annually in New York City, Jan. 17-20, at Booth #4063.

Once you’ve had a chance to read, feel free to comment below on what surprised you or whether it has influenced your thinking. We look forward to hearing from you!