If the number of people who shop via smart speakers seems low, the number who actually make purchases is even lower. Some 22.7 million people will use smart speaker voice commands to purchase goods or services at least once this year. This translates to 26.0% of smart speaker users, 11.1% of digital buyers, and 8.2% of the population.
Additional research confirms that most people who dabble in voice shopping only do so on the margins. Our September 2020 "Ecommerce Survey," conducted by Bizrate Insights, revealed that just 2% used voice shopping regularly, while 63% said they’d neither used it nor had any interest, up from 58% in our June 2020 survey. It also found that 9% had made purchases via their smart speaker (up 3 percentage points since June) and 22% said they’d asked for product recommendations using their device (up 4 percentage points). Just 14% added products to their shopping cart and checked out on another device (down 1 percentage point), and 12% had reordered products they’d purchased before (down 3 percentage points).
These statistics further reinforce that consumers are not regularly shopping or buying via smart speaker, especially when they have no screen and it’s difficult to see what’s being purchased. However, in one slightly brighter spot for voice commerce, 17% of smart speaker owners ages 18 to 34 had made a smart speaker purchase, and 15% had used their device to reorder products they’d bought previously.