Dive Brief:

• Almost a third of consumers (31%) shop online at least once a week compared to 22% last year, and a 41% increase from two years ago, according to a white paper released Wednesday by public relations firm Walker Sands.

• Over the same period, the number of consumers shopping online less than once per month has dropped from 38% to 27%, according to the report. Still, The majority of shoppers prefer to buy in physical stores for all product categories except for books (68% prefer online), consumer electronics (67% prefer online) and office supplies (51% prefer online). 

• Just 9% took advantage of same-day shipping over the past year, but nearly half (49%) said they’d shop online even more if same-day shipping were available. Still, free shipping continues to be the top driver, according to the report, with almost 90% reporting that free shipping would make them shop more online. One-day shipping (69%) and free returns (68%) were also big incentives to online shopping. More than half (51%) say they’ve placed an online order and picked it up in store. 

Dive Insight:

This Walker Sands study jibes with another from UPS this week that found that consumers bought more online than in stores for the first time this year with 51% of purchases made on the web, compared to 48% in 2015 and 47% in 2014. 

The study, though, paints an enduring picture of consumers who, while increasingly turning to the web for many items more often, prefer shopping in stores for key categories. The question for retailers is where to invest and how to beat down the higher costs of online operations.

As with the UPS study, the “Amazon effect” of driving fast, cheap delivery and same-day delivery, is evident. But omnichannel services like click-and-collect and free shipping appear to be priorities for consumers, more than same-day deliveries.

That could simply be because same-day delivery at the moment is relegated to a few big cities. But it’s far from clear that shoppers are willing to pay for the expensive option at a level that would allow the many startups in the space to achieve the scale they’re after and the retailers offering it to boost sales.

"Most customers don't really need it the same day. It’s nice in big cities, San Francisco, New York," Leigh Helsel, head of retail at tech solutions consultancy ICC, told Retail Dive earlier this year. "But by and large I’m not sure. When you melt it down is it really adding incremental sales?"