Online spending will surpass expenditure at physical stores within the next five years, according to research from Japanese online retail giant Rakuten.

Spending at brick-and-mortar shops will be encouraged by content experiences, recommendation engines and social comments, it says.

One in four respondents in a survey said that shoppers will use physical stores as showrooms where they will browse goods, then buy online.

“There’s no question that shoppers still love that tangible branded shopping experience that the high street delivers so well, but this idea of showrooming is growing in popularity,” says Rakuten’s Play.com marketing director Adam Stewart.

“Ultimately it’s about creating multi-touch shopping experiences and this extends online, from interacting with customers through social channels to providing a dynamic and entertaining digital shopping experience.”

Meanwhile, Rakuten also found out that while social network use is growing among online shoppers, only 13 per cent of the retailers use Facebook and 15 per cent use Twitter. A majority of them (69 per cent) use email to engage with customers.

“It’s interesting to see that few retailers are taking advantage of free social tools like Twitter and Facebook to engage shoppers,” adds Stewart.

“It’s true that social is not for everyone, especially when you consider the resource required to run these channels effectively, but it’s a key part of delivering the multi-channel brand experiences consumers are fast coming to expect.”