Shoppers Want to Share Private Information… For a Price, According to Snapette Survey

NEW YORK, April 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Shoppers will see more sales promotions in the future as retailers woo them for personal information. Recent data from top fashion shopping app Snapette®, a business unit of PriceGrabber®, shows that shoppers want to exchange personal demographic and shopping information with retailers for a reward instead of keeping it private, despite controversy surrounding privacy and information-sharing. Conducted on PriceGrabber.com from February 7 – March 7, 2014, this survey includes responses from 3,449 U.S. shopping consumers.

Respondents were asked questions relating to four scenarios concerning in-store and online personal information-sharing. Personal information included age, gender, email, clothing/shoe size, and credit card number among others. When asked how desirable it was to give retailers personal information for a reward, 50 percent of all respondents would happily provide retailers with information for a discount. Shoppers are more willing to share their information online than in-store, though in-store information-sharing levels are still high: 48 percent of all respondents wanted to share their information in-store versus 56 percent online.

"As private information becomes more accessible through technological advances, retailers should capitalize on shoppers' growing desire to share personal information," explains Jinhee Ahn Kim, co-founder of Snapette. "Discounts are one great way to incentivize shoppers to actively and enthusiastically share information with retailers."

Not all rewards are equal:
To test which reward was most enticing to prompt privacy-sharing, respondents were asked how much of a percent-off discount and then how many dollars off a $100 product they require to provide personal information. The choices for the percent-off (10%, 20%, 50%, and more than 75%) and for dollar-off ($10, $20, $50, and $75) discounts were exactly the same. Nevertheless, significantly more respondents wanted to share personal information if they received a percent-off coupon than dollar-off. Between both in-store and online scenarios, on average 34 percent of all shoppers preferred 50% coupons, compared to 25 percent who preferred $50-off gift cards.

Enticing the consumers more:
Amy Chen, Snapette's director of strategy & operations, advises, "To obtain customers' personal information that can be used to target them better in-store and online, retailers should ease their minds by providing them with a high incentive, more autonomy over their personal information, and more clarity on how information-sharing works."

Despite controversy over information-sharing, shoppers want to provide information for a reward. Though information-sharing can improve customers' shopping experiences, backlash against it stems from concerns of information being used improperly and without consumers' consent. A recent survey from OpinionLab reported that 81 percent of its respondents don't trust retailers to keep private data secure. Since half of consumers still need to become accustomed to information-sharing, retailers should emphasize the purposes, utilities, and benefits of information-sharing, like personalized rewards. Such assurance can drive sales from demographic groups more hesitant about information-sharing, such as the lower and higher income brackets, women, and the elderly. Snapette's survey highlights the significance of high discounts to encourage information-sharing and shoppers' desire to leverage tech and receive more personalized rewards.

About PriceGrabber^®

PriceGrabber^® is a leading distributed ecommerce platform and shopping site that connects millions of shoppers each month with thousands of merchants. We reach our consumer audience via desktop and mobile devices through a network of over 400 digital publisher partners as well as through our owned and operated web properties. Together with our distribution partners, we drive over $1 billion in annual sales for our retailer partners. PriceGrabber's unique portfolio of business units, including the world's premier location-based mobile fashion app Snapette, provides brands and retailers with unparalleled marketing and sales opportunities to millions of active, qualified and ready to buy shoppers on a monthly basis. PriceGrabber is a unit of CPL Holdings LLC and headquartered in Los Angeles, CA with operations across North America and in the United Kingdom. Visit us at http://www.pricegrabber.com.

Source: Snapette and PriceGrabber, Privacy Survey, February 7 – March 7, 2014

OpinionLab, "New Study: Consumers Overwhelmingly Reject In-Store Tracking by Retailers", March 2014 http://www.opinionlab.com/press_release/new-study-consumers-overwhelmingly-reject-in-store-tracking-by-retailers/

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SOURCE Snapette; PriceGrabber