Amazon | Case study
How Spain buys between the shop and the screen
Amazon wanted to see how people in Spain move between shops and screens when they buy something. This customer journey research followed twelve shoppers in Madrid from the first idea to the moment they paid: three weeks of mobile diary, a shop-along with every one of them in the shops they chose, and an interview once they had bought.
Customer & human insightService | Customer & human insightResearch into who your customers are, what they need and why they choose you: personas, segments, journeys and unmet needs.- E-commerce
- Spain
QualitativeMethod | Human StoriesIn-depth interviews and ethnography that explain why people think and act the way they do.
Madrid | From first idea to purchase
- 12
- shoppers
- 3
- weeks of mobile diary
- 12
- shop-alongs
- 12
- post-purchase interviews
Every shopper followed through the whole purchase, whatever they were buying.
01
The decision on the table
Online shopping keeps growing in Spain, and the shop hasn’t gone away. People search on the phone, go to a shop to see the thing for real, ask someone, check prices again and then pay, sometimes at the till and sometimes online. For a marketplace, every step of that path is a moment where the sale can be won or lost.
Amazon wanted to see that path while it was happening. Asked weeks later, people tidy a purchase up in their memory: the doubts disappear and the order of things changes. The question was what moves a purchase in Spain between the first idea and the payment, and what part the physical shop still plays in it.
02
The questions
- What does the path from the first idea to the purchase look like in Spain, step by step?
- How do people weigh seeing and touching the product against finding the best price online?
- What tips the final decision: the price, having it today, or having held it in their hands?
- How can a marketplace be there for people who decide in a shop and pay online?
03
Why we designed it this way
A purchase runs for days or weeks, across a phone, a shop and a conversation with someone. We followed it in three ways, with the visit to the shop at the centre.
A diary in their pocket
For three weeks each shopper recorded on their phone what they searched, saw and thought about the purchase, with short tasks from us along the way. We saw the decision take shape before memory tidied it up.
Into the shop with every one of them
The heart of the study: we went with all twelve shoppers to the shops they chose in Madrid, such as MediaMarkt, Fnac and El Corte Inglés, and watched what they touched, what they asked the staff and the moment the phone came out of the pocket.
One more conversation after paying
Once the purchase was made, an in-depth interview went back over the whole path: what convinced them, what nearly stopped them and why they paid where they did.
04
Under the hood
For the insights team who want to check the rigour.
Sample
12 shoppers in Madrid, recruited one by one: people who were already planning a purchase and hadn’t yet decided what to buy or where.
Any purchase
Each shopper bought what they were already going to buy, from a television to a pair of running shoes. The study looked at the path, whatever the product and whatever the price.
Mobile diary
Three weeks per shopper, with tasks along the way: searches, websites visited, price checks and thoughts about the purchase, recorded as they happened.
Shop-alongs
12 shop-alongs, one with every shopper, in the shops of their choice in Madrid, including MediaMarkt, Fnac and El Corte Inglés. We went in with them, watched how they compared, touched and asked, and saw when they checked prices on the phone.
Post-purchase interviews
12 in-depth interviews once the purchase was made, to go back over the path and weigh each step.
Analysis
The twelve paths compared step by step, to find the moments they share and the points where they split.
05
What we can tell you
The detailed findings belong to the client. What we can share is the pattern that kept coming back across the twelve purchases, much of it seen first hand in the shop-alongs.
Seeing it for real
Many shoppers needed to go to a shop to see the product in person: compare it with others on the shelf, try it on, hold it. In the shop-alongs we saw it happen.
A question for the staff
When they needed it, they asked someone in the shop before making up their mind.
The best offer, online
After the shop, many bought online, wherever they found the best offer.
A place they trust
Others bought in the shop itself, because they preferred to pay somewhere they trust.
Each shopper kept a mobile diary for three weeks, went to the shop with us on a shop-along and sat down for an interview after paying. At the end the path split in two: many bought online at the best offer they found, others in a shop they trusted.
06
What they received
Twelve purchase paths, end to end
Each shopper’s path from the first idea to the payment, with the moments that moved the decision.
Findings report for Spain
What the twelve paths had in common, where they split, and what that means for selling online in Spain.
The field material
Diary entries, notes from each of the twelve shop-alongs and interview records, organised so any finding can be traced back to the shopper behind it.
07
What happened next
The detailed results stay with the client. The study gave Amazon twelve real purchases in Spain, followed from the first idea to the payment, and a close look at the part the physical shop still plays when the sale ends up online.
One lens, for now
This was a qualitative study: it shows how and why people move between shops and screens. The next layers would measure how many shoppers in Spain follow each path, through a survey, and listen to how people talk online about buying in shops and online, through social listening. That’s how a set of journeys grows into an H3™ view of a market.
- Human StoriesDone
- Hard EvidenceRecommended next
Your customers check in one place and pay in another? Follow the purchase, step by step.
Tell us the decision in front of you and the purchase you need to understand. You get a fixed price and a date we commit to, and if a journey study isn’t what you need, you’ll hear that first.
- You get in touchBy email, through the form or on a video call, whichever suits you.
- We ask for the briefEvery detail we need, so the proposal is shaped around what you actually require.
- We design the proposalThe approach that answers your objectives, with the timeline and the budget.
- Approval, and we beginYou sign off, the paperwork is settled, and the work starts.
- Senior researchers only. No juniors.
- End to end. Design, fieldwork, reporting.
- No AI automation. Any use, disclosed.