Brick-and-mortar retailers continue to feel the added pressure of online and mobile commerce. According to a new report from ClickIQ, approximately one-third of consumers who use smartphones to research goods while shopping in-store end up buying that item online through e-tailers such as Amazon.

Retail merchants appealing to men's interests may want to consider revising their store operations to be more competitive, as 55 percent of the people using their phones to research were males. Age is another factor to consider – 26 percent of consumers between the ages of 30 and 39 and 25 percent of shoppers between 18 and 29 are likely to use their phones for research.

The research also noted that big-name brands lost the most sales to this behavior.

"The retailers most frequented for research by these respondents were Best Buy at 36 percent, Walmart at 30 percent and Target at 29 percent. In this study, Best Buy had more males do online research in the store than females," the report added.

Some brick-and-mortar retail merchants are fighting this habit by offering price-matching policies for consumers who find the same goods cheaper elsewhere.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Monday, March 19th, 2012 at 10:38 am .