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Consumer Insight and Shopper Insight: What's the Difference?

 

The research and insight industry has a bad habit of throwing around unnecessarily confusing terminology – for newcomers and specialists alike. Even within the industry, we’ve all had meetings where we’ve been at cross-purposes for an hour because each group has a slightly different understanding of a given term

This often happens because many terms are closely related, without clear boundaries or distinctions between them. ‘Consumer insight’ vs ‘shopper insight’ is a great example: these terms refer to different things, but they frequently overlap and may even refer to the same thing (don’t worry, we’ll come back to this).

Since there’s not yet an agreed-upon industry dictionary or glossary, we thought it would be worth defining consumer and shopper insight for our research purposes. Here’s a quick primer on what these terms mean, when they are different vs the same, and how to use them effectively.

 
 
 

Consumer insight vs shopper insight

Here at Basis, we spend a lot of time talking about consumer insights. For a full breakdown, check out this article on Consumer Insight 101 – or read on to discover how it is different from shopper insight and how both can be used in tandem.

What is consumer insight?

At its most basic level, though, consumer insight is simply an understanding of the people who consume products and services. From a business perspective, consumer insight focuses specifically on the people who consume your products or services, i.e. your target audience.

For general examples of consumers, think: 

  • The people watching Netflix

  • The people taking out mortgages to live in houses

  • The people replacing all the food in their diet with nutritionally optimised powder shakes 

And to gain insights about these consumers, you might ask: 

  • Who are they?

  • What do they need?

  • What do they prioritise in their decision-making?

And what is shopper insight?

If consumer insight is an understanding of those who consume products and services, then shopper insight is (you guessed it!) an understanding of the people who buy them.

Much of the time, in many categories, the shopper and consumer are the same person:

  • The person who buys the Netflix subscription typically also uses it

  • The person who takes out the mortgage is normally the person who lives in the house

  • The person who buys the nutritionally optimised powder shake usually also drinks it

But that’s not always the case. Think about Christmas presents under the tree – presents which have been purchased by some people to give to other, different people. In this situation, the shoppers are not the same as the consumers.

Or consider the Netflix subscription example – another shopper/consumer divide most of us are probably familiar with! Only one person pays for the Netflix subscription, but multiple people use it (some of them might even be using it more than the person who paid for it.).

So while consumer insights and shopper insights usually involve the same person, there are also many instances in which they do not, or in which the shopper is not the sole consumer.

And of course, these insights are not purely defined by the person who is shopping and/or consuming. Shopper and consumer insights also vary by type of insight – that is, the insights we tend to associate with shoppers are different from the insights we associate with consumers.

 
 
 
 
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Consumer vs shopper insights

By its very nature, consumer insight encompasses a broader scope than shopper insight. This is because shopping is a fairly ‘limited’ experience – there are only so many ways people can buy things – while consumption of products/services can vary much more in terms of setting, experience, takeaways, and future behaviour.

As a result, consumer insights may relate to everything from consumers’ basic demographics to their deeper psychology to their conscious behaviour. Shopper insights, meanwhile, relate primarily to the purchase experience. While this can still involve demographics, psychology, and behavior, with shopper insight, it’s all on a much narrower path.

Consumer insight examples

Thinking about those Netflix users as a sample consumer base, some hypothetical examples of consumer insights might be:

  • 50% of people who use Netflix are between the ages of 18 and 35 (demographic consumer insight).

  • Many Netflix users feel overwhelmed by shows with five seasons or more (psychological consumer insight).

  • The average Netflix user watches three hours of Netflix content per day (behavioural consumer insight)

Consumer insight is also more likely to relate to overarching themes and trends playing out on the market. Some examples (again, hypothetical!) of trend-based consumer insights might be:

  • Most streaming customers have access to 3-4 streaming platforms rather than just one.

  • The number of streaming customers who use VPNs to watch foreign content has doubled over the last five years.

  • Streaming customers are increasingly choosing grimdark shows like Game of Thrones and The Witcher over more lighthearted content.

Basically, consumer insight involves many factors which shape how people think and act, and the resulting insights vary depending on industry.

Shopper insight examples

By contrast, shopper insight tends to be much narrower. These insights relate mainly to the purchase journey, with a particular focus on the sharp end.

Let’s take a more tangible approach here, looking at the shopper pool of people buying groceries for their household. Some hypothetical examples of shopper insights might be:

  • The average shopper spends 12 minutes in the store per visit.

  • More shoppers purchased bakery items when the bakery display was set up on the right side of the store rather than the left.

  • Shoppers who have the supermarket’s app on their phone save an average of 15% on their purchases thanks to in-app discounts.

In summary: we might think of consumer insight as relating more to the top of a traditional marketing funnel – i.e. consumer awareness and consideration of different brands and solutions. 

And we might think of shopper insight as being more focused on things which affect the bottom of the same funnel – i.e. decision-making and sales.

How to use consumer and shopper insights

As you can probably guess, most businesses require both consumer and shopper insights in order to succeed. After all, they affect different parts of the marketing funnel – and you don’t want to ignore any part of that funnel in your quest for customers!

If your consumers tend to be the same as your shoppers, you will need:

  1. Insight that helps explain how they approach each category and purchase, and what shapes their thinking and priorities.

  2. Insight on what happens when they’re in a purchase journey, and what shapes their decision-making and actions.

And if your consumers are not the same as your shoppers, you will need: 

  1. Consumer insight to help shape your product or service, and ensure it is meeting the needs of the people ultimately using it.

  2. Shopper insight to help shape your marketing and sales strategies, and ensure you’re maximising conversions throughout the purchase journey.

And in terms of how to use these insights effectively, we’ve got a whole other article for that! Read more on how to gather & implement consumer insights right here – or just get in touch with us below.

 

If your business has a development team that needs to know what to build, and/or a marketing team that needs to know how to position and sell your product(s), then your business needs Consumer and Shopper Insight Services.

Get in touch with the Basis team today and start gathering insights to optimise your customer journeys at every single stage.