How would shoppers react to the death of print?

Printed promotions, such as catalogs and leaflets, are still widely used by shoppers.

However, printing and distribution of print is extremely expensive. And the recent supply chain issues, inflation and looming legislation are only making it worse.

So, what’s in the future for print?

Many retailers are considering reducing print and finding a suitable digital alternative.

But doing so without knowledge of how shoppers would react to the death of print would be risking customer loyalty and, in the end, revenue.

To enable retailers to make informed decisions based on real-world feedback, we asked more than 7,000 shoppers in eight European countries about how they would react to the death of print.

Here are three of the main questions and answers:

Question 1: Do shoppers see mainly benefits or drawbacks of dropping print for digital?

Shoppers recognize the benefits related to dropping the printed promotions:

66% agree that it would be beneficial for the environment. Even the least valuable benefit is recognized by 46% of shoppers.

On the other hand, shoppers also have concerns:

43% of shoppers are concerned that more digital promotions will increase the amount of spam and notifications they receive.

Almost 4 out of 10 are afraid of their data being commodified by companies and having to install multiple apps, which potentially increases complexity for the shopper.

The reality is that shoppers see both potential benefits and drawbacks when thinking of replacing print with digital.

Q2: Would the death of print affect the search for deals, prices and products?

For many shoppers, it wouldn’t be a problem to find the same information online.

Printed catalogs and leaflets seem to be less important in terms of purely information search.

On average, 69% of respondents agree they would be able to find the same information about deals, prices and products online if there were no printed promotions. This finding is even consistent among young and old shoppers.

Q3: Would shoppers miss printed promotions?

If print disappears, it would be a loss to many shoppers:

On average, 52% of respondents agree that they would miss the printed promotions. Only 26% of respondents actively disagree with this statement.

Shoppers from all countries, even though with low use of print, state that they would miss printed leaflets and catalogs if they were gone.

Summary

There are two major takeaways from this:

1. Shoppers see clear benefits to dropping printed leaflets, but they also have concerns.

So, if retailers transition away from print, they should focus their communication strategy on the benefits and reassure the concerns.

2. Although shoppers believe they could find the same information without print, they also agree that they would miss printed promotions.

This means that killing print would impact the shopping experience, but not just in terms of practical information search.

Instead, it’s probably something to do with the emotional connection to the format – either due to tradition, culture or simple habit.

So, if a retailer decides to reduce or drop print?

Then they must ensure that digital replacements feel like a proper replacement to shoppers.

Where do retailers go from here?

The above naturally begs the question: Which digital channels do then feel like a proper replacement of print to shoppers?

Basically, which channels would shoppers go to if there was no print?

Download the full European Shopper Survey here to get all the answers!