Characteristics of the Wealthy Online

Ledbury recently carried out a survey on the use of the internet as part of our qualitative WealthViews™ stream of research. This showed that wealthy consumers have a number of shared character traits that can help us understand their online behaviour. Some of these traits are highlighted below:

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.

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.

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.