Survey: consumers likely to spend more in venues that offer WiFi
By Retail Technology | Friday June 13 2014
Consumers are more likely to stay in a location longer and spend more money there if WiFi is available
Two thirds (63%) of respondents to a recent survey indicated that they would be more likely to spend extra money in a venue that offers a WiFi connection.
The data, which was collected by wireless technology provider Purple WiFi between March and May of this year, also indicated that three quarters of the respondents would stay in a location longer if it offered some sort of WiFi.
Out of 2,540 respondents, 77% said they were more likely to go to a location if it offers free WiFi. However only 6% would be more likely to visit a venue without minding if the WiFi is free or paid. Nearly 80% of people said they specifically look for Free WiFi connections when out in public places.
Knowledge of how to access public WiFi is still lacking, with 66% of people being confused about how to get online; 54% believe they are automatically connected in a venue that offers WiFi, 7% believe they need to switch off and on again and 5% confirm that they simply don't know how to access public WiFi.
A majority of businesses don’t collect user details off on-premise WiFi
Nearly three-quarters of businesses don’t have any means of collecting details of users on their on-premise WiFi, according to another survey conducted by the company during November of last year.
While a vast majority of businesses (nearly 80%) offer WiFi access to customers on their premises, most of those businesses (nearly 70%) don’t have any way of collecting user details from those who access it. In addition, most respondents to another survey (76%) are providing WiFi to their customers free of charge.
This survey, which was answered by over 3,000 businesses in the hospitality, medical, travel, education, leisure and retail sectors across the world also showed that nearly half of the respondents are running their own systems on a separate network. By contrast, nearly 40% are running their own systems securely on the same network.
Following the trend
The ‘me too’ factor seems to be by far the biggest reason for offering WiFi in the first place, with just over half of respondents saying it’s expected and noting that everybody else is doing it.
A large number of those businesses said their WiFi service was in response to customer requests and just 17% offer WiFi to keep customers on-site for longer.
Again, just over half of the businesses surveyed view the WiFi strictly as a service offered to customers, while only 45% think it can serve both as a service and as a marketing tool for their businesses. Just 3% use WiFi strictly as a marketing tool.
