Ledbury Research recently conducted a survey on the use of the internet by wealthy consumers. How do their findings match up with your behavior?

Many wealthy consumers are very impulsive and feel the need for instant gratification, possibly as they can always afford to buy on a whim if they wish. They don’t want to waste too much of their precious time browsing – whether online or offline - and are unwilling to wait for goods to be delivered; instead they appreciate the instant gratification of buying offline and walking away with the goods. However, interestingly some feel a double sense of gratification when buying online, firstly at the time of purchase and secondly at the time of delivery.

Ledbury found that wealthy consumers are less likely to value the opinions of people they do not know. (In other research, the opinions of people known to affluent consumers are very important.)

Wealthy consumers are often opinionated, well-informed and experienced on brands, so they are less likely to take into account the opinions of unknown persons such as those writing online reviews. This leads them to make speedy and ruthless judgements in general, even more so when it comes to online offerings. They tend to disregard reviews unless written by someone with proven expertise on the subject.

Unsurprisingly, affluent consumers seemed to be discerning consumers:

Being demanding is another strong trait of wealthy consumers: they’re used to receiving attentive and personalised service, so dealing with a faceless machine such as the internet can be a frustrating affair[…] They therefore have a very low patience threshold when it comes to websites loading slowly, meaning that luxury goods websites which employ flash rather than html can be problematic. They are also averse to using online forms for help; most would much prefer to pick up the telephone to speak to a real person.

Many of these characteristics are true of the general population, of course - who likes slow sites?

OTHER ARTICLES THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

• Luxury consumers are similar
• Not everyone loves luxury
• The allure of high price
• Keeping it real
• Family Office Wealth Conference - Sept 18 2007