GB: Apple challenger Nothing to open a retail outlet: do Britons tend to shop online or offline?

British consumer electronics company, Nothing, has announced its first physical store will open in London’s Soho district before Christmas 2022. The hardware startup – which aspires to compete with Apple – has so far banked on pop-up stores and an online presence to promote and sell its products.

With Nothing all set to to launch its first offline store, we use YouGov data to look into whether Britons prefer shopping for consumer electronics in-store or online.

According to YouGov Profiles - which covers demographic, psychographic, attitudinal and behavioral consumer metrics – more than half of Britons (51%) who intend to purchase mobiles or mobile accessories in the coming 12 months tend to shop for electronics mostly online. Comparatively, significantly fewer (36%) of the general Great Britain (GB) population tend to buy electronic products mostly online.

Just above one in ten (12%) respondents who intend to purchase mobiles/mobile accessories say they tend to buy electronics mostly offline. A similar number of all Britons (12%) tend to buy electronics offline as well.

Data further shows that a little more than half (54%) of the consumers who intend to purchase mobiles/mobile accessories in the coming 12 months, browse for items in-store – 48% of the general population does the same.

40% of Britons who intend to purchase mobiles/mobile accessories and 34% of the general population see something in-store and buy it in-store itself.

While most Britons prefer browsing for and buying products online, a significant number of them complete their purchases offline, in stores.

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Methodology: YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data for GB is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. Learn more about Profiles.