That’s one of the unexpected findings in PYMNTS Intelligence’s “How People Pay Report: Health and Beauty Products Draw Retail Shoppers Into Brick-and-Mortar Stores.” Based on a December survey of 2,628 consumers in the United States, the study details how buying patterns shift depending not just on what shoppers want but where they buy it.
Health and beauty products remain the most reliable lure for in-store retail traffic, even as digital channels command higher spending and broader product assortments.
While merchants have long assumed eCommerce has chipped away at nearly every category, certain products still compel consumers to step inside a store. Yet the economics of that decision look different. Shoppers who log on spend more overall than those who walk in.
- Shoppers spend 68% more online per retail basket. The average in-store purchase came to $78.50, compared with $131.66 online. That gap holds across the range of categories, suggesting the digital environment itself drives larger tickets, thanks to broader selection, frictionless checkout and upselling algorithms.
- Health and beauty anchor physical retail but command higher spend online. While 37% of in-store shoppers bought health and beauty items, more than any other category, the average ticket was $84.67. Online, those purchases averaged $138.61, or 64% more. The same face cream or fragrance may get discovered in-store but purchased in bulk, or at higher price points, online.
- Generation Z reverses the script. Forty-six percent of Gen Z online shoppers bought health and beauty items digitally in the month before being surveyed, compared with 30% across all online consumers. While most generations buy home goods online, Gen Z was nearly twice as likely as the average shopper to buy furnishings and appliances in-store, suggesting a tactile preference for big-ticket categories.
The channel divide also extends to how people pay. Debit cards still dominate in stores, while credit is the currency of choice online, particularly for electronics. Digital wallets are a swing factor, as in-store usage more than doubled between mid-2022 and late 2024, reaching 10% of transactions.
When it comes to transacting online, wallet usage plateaued and even slipped from its peak in 2024.
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Other findings flesh out the complexity of these retail cross-currents. Online shoppers gravitate toward categories like books, hobbies and electronics, items that are 76% more likely to be part of an online basket than an in-store purchase.
Clothing splits the difference, second only to beauty for in-store purchases, but also a fertile ground for gift cards and buy now, pay later when bought online.
The result is a marketplace where merchants face two distinct consumer profiles: the in-store shopper who shows up with a short list and a debit card, and the online shopper who clicks through broader categories, spends more freely on credit and is more open to alternative payments. Health and beauty may get consumers through the door, but their digital baskets are where the real money lies.
