How Most Shoppers Shop—and How That Journey Gets Broken

Modern shoppers don’t think in channels. They browse on their phones, test products in stores, search on Google, scroll through Meta, and buy wherever is most convenient. This fluid, cross-channel behavior is the norm—not the exception—and it’s time for brands and retailers to stop treating each channel as an isolated ecosystem.

But too often, that journey gets broken. And when it does, it’s almost always brands who lose.

Let’s look at the two most common cross-channel journeys:

1. Online-to-Offline or Webrooming

The Dominant Path to Purchase

The majority of shoppers today begin their journey online before visiting a physical store to complete the purchase. According to Think with Google, 83% of U.S. shoppers who visited a store in the last week said they first searched online before heading in. This path is so common it has a name: webrooming.

Shoppers use brand websites, Amazon, Meta, Google, and other search platforms to research and validate their options. They expect accurate product info and—critically—real-time local availability. When brands and retailers support this journey with tools like store locators and local inventory feeds, they meet shoppers at the moment of intent and drive them straight into stores ready to buy.

2. Offline-to-Online or Showrooming

Still Part of the Same Journey

Showrooming gets a bad rap. But it’s just the mirror image of webrooming. A shopper visits a store, checks out products, and then continues their journey online. If they don’t find the right product—or if that product is out of stock locally—they might turn to Amazon, a brand’s site, or other shopping engines to finish their purchase.

Here’s the catch: if a brand’s products aren’t stocked in the store during that initial visit, that brand is already out of the running. The shopper won’t showroom for a product they never saw in the first place.

For the vast majority of shoppers, initial engagement starts offline. But, poor local market share kills the funnel before showrooming can even get started.

That means brands who support the online-to-offline journey actually benefit from the offline-to-online journey. And those who ignore it lose across the board.

Supporting Wholesale Builds All Channels

In the past few years, many brands have chased DTC growth at the expense of their wholesale partners. But the data tells a cautionary tale. Brands that deprioritized wholesale have often seen declines not only in retail sales—but also online.

Many brands are seeing DTC success based on 20+ years of affinity built up by their wholesale retailers But goodwill is fleeting.

Why? Because when a brand loses shelf space in local stores, it disappears from the shopper’s consideration set. Competitors step in. And the brand begins to vanish from all touchpoints—search results, marketplace rankings, social mentions, and ultimately, purchase behavior.

By contrast, Locally has seen explosive growth at brands who’ve leaned into supporting their wholesale networks. Even just optimizing the store and product locator tools has helped brands drive more shoppers into partner stores—with no negative impact on DTC performance. We’ve seen online conversion rates increase when brands embrace their role as the central connector between all channels.

The Wholesale and Local Store Opportunity: 80%+ of All Sales

While e-commerce growth gets most of the headlines, the reality is that brick-and-mortar retail still accounts for over 80% of total U.S. retail sales, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Online is growing—but it’s also consolidating. Between Amazon, Walmart.com, and a few other giants, the space is highly competitive, commoditized, and margin-tight.

Local retail, on the other hand, is where brands can win on experience, discovery, and service. It’s where new products get tried, and where long-term loyalty is built. Brands that show up well in stores win mindshare, repeat business, and—yes—online traffic.

The Takeaway: Fix the Journey, Everywhere

Shoppers are already moving across channels. Brands don’t need to create that behavior—they need to support it. By leaning into wholesale, surfacing local availability online, and building tools that guide shoppers across webrooming and showrooming experiences, brands can:

• Increase in-store sales

• Improve online conversion

• Protect margin

• And grow the total market share

Cross-channel shopping is normal. Breaking the shopper journey shouldn’t be.