66% are willing to share data in order to get more personalised services and experiences: PwC report

Delhi: 

PwC's inaugural Voice of the Consumer Survey 2024 unveiled that 83% consumers prioritise their data protection while 66% are willing to share data in order to get more personalised services and experiences

Key findings: 

1. Increased spending

Indian consumers are notably optimistic, with 75% indicating plans to increase spending on key categories like clothing, footwear, groceries.

2. Consumer trust

Consumers are placing relatively low trust in retail and consumer good companies. On average, technology and healthcare companies are most widely trusted, with the highest trust scores of 7.55 and 7.42 respectively. Social media companies and platforms and pharmaceutical companies were ranked least trustworthy.

Six imperatives for forging consumer trust

1. Personal data

• 83% consumers say that it is important that they know their devices are keeping their information private. 

• 74% are happy for their data to be used to deliver useful features and services. 

• 66% are willing to share data in order to get more personalised services and experiences.

2. Health and well-being

• 69%  of consumers expect to increase their consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables in the next 6 months. 

• 75% of consumers proactively seek out information on sustainability of food products. 

• 38% of consumers are most likely to rely on health and fitness experts for advice on health and well-being. 

• Millennials are significantly more likely to plan to increase their consumption of the top food groups in the next 6 months. 

• More millennials (78%) prefer to have an independent sustainability score on food labelling compared to Gen Z (66%).

3. Social media

• 58% of consumers have purchased products directly through social media. At the same time, consumers are questioning its safety and reliability, ranking social media their least trusted industry. 

• 77% of consumers discover new brands through social media. 

• 81% of consumers use social media to seek reviews to validate a company before making a purchase. 

• Social media advertisements influence purchases for 82% of consumers. 

• 76% are worried about privacy and data sharing, which highlights the need for robust privacy measures. 

• Indian female consumers are more likely influenced by advertisements via social

• media (86%) compared to their male counterparts (79%).

• Core millennials and mature millennials are more to be after likely influenced by

• advertisements via social media: 87% and 86%, respectively, compared to other

• age groups in India (82%).

4. Purchase journey and value

• 56% of consumers purchase from physical stores, while 47% shop online (vis-à-vis 34% global consumers). 

• 62% choose to visit physical stores and engage with salespeople for discovery, while 53% turn to online browsing. 

• 65% use search engines, while 62% engage with associates in stores to research products. 

• In-store (43%) and online marketplaces (44%) are the top channels used for completing purchases.

• 35% of consumers are likely to consider better value for money as the single largest factor for brand switching. 

• 41% of consumers indicate that the availability of mobile or contactless payment solutions would encourage them to shop in-store. 

• Digitally enabled product tags to access further product details has been ranked first by Gen X (22%). 

• Young millennials ranked mobile payment/contactless payment solutions slightly higher at 45% vs 41% for the rest of Indian consumers.

5. Climate

• 46% perceive climate change as the greatest threat over the next 12 months. 93% of consumers have noticed climate related disruptions in their day-to-day lives – higher than the global average of 85%. 

• 60% of consumers are changing their purchasing habits by buying more sustainable products. 

• Consumers would be willing to pay 13.1% above the average price for sustainably produced or sourced goods (globally, this figure is 9.7%).

6. AI

• 57% of consumers would trust AI to support them with low-risk activities such as getting product information ahead of a purchase or providing product recommendations. However, they are less trusting of AI taking on high-risk activities. 

• On an average, consumers indicated trust in only 4 of the 8 activities listed, with less than 50% of them trusting AI with high-risk activities. Despite high interest among respondents in the use of chatbots, consumers demand direct connection with a sales representative. 

• Gen X and millennials are more keen to connect directly to customer service agents to enhance their experience (each at 47%) vs other respondents in India (45%). 

• 86% of consumers on an average express concerns about future developments of GenAI. The most pressing concerns regarding the future of AI development relate to cyber risks and job security. A substantial 85% of consumers express concerns about less human interaction in daily life. 

• Gen Z are significantly more likely to indicate they are ‘not at all concerned’ across all options, except potential for job loss due to AI capabilities. Females are significantly more likely to indicate they are ‘very concerned’ across all options except AI’s inability to apply human judgement and wisdom.