Americans still prefer physical stores, but online shopping continues to grow

As Americans power through holiday shopping season, a vast majority now say they shop online.

A new survey from the Pew Research Center found that eight in ten people in the United States have made purchases on the web, though only around 28 percent do so at least multiple times per month.

While that number might not sound significant to you if online shopping is second nature, brick-and-mortar is still by far the dominant form of retail in the United States. E-commerce has been steadily growing for years, but it currently only accounts for less than a tenth of all sales annually, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

That dominance is reflected in Pew's finding that 65 percent of respondents said they preferred to do their shopping in-store rather than online, all else being equal.

But even those who strictly shop in stores tend to rely on technology to get the most out of the experience. More than eight in 10 of those surveyed said they always read online reviews before purchasing something for the first time, and the same number said it is important to use the web to compare prices.

Notably, just over half of Americans say they have purchased something from their smartphone — a stat that flies in the face of studies claiming online shoppers overwhelmingly prefer to buy on desktop.

Pew's results jibe with other reports this season that have traced the ebb of retail cash from brick-and-mortar to the web. A study from Adobe last month found that e-commerce sales were up more than 16 percent the weekend after Black Friday as compared to the same period the previous year, while physical retail experienced a modest drop.