In yet another confirmation that the dominant shopping paradigm is not going to be ecommerce but Internet-influenced offline buying, Yahoo! yesterday released results of a large consumer study conducted with the Consumer Electronics Association. The study involved more than 2,000 US adults and focused on five categories of consumer electronics.
At the highest level the survey found that people are using more information sources (both on and offline) to conduct research before buying, which is correlated with how “considered” (read: expensive) the purchase is.
Here are some of the findings:
- Of all purchasers of CE products in the study, online buyers were a significant minority (29%), while most purchases happened in local stores (71%). Of those buying offline, almost three quarters conducted online research prior to purchase.
- On average CE consumers in the study used visited six manufacturer and/or retail sites before purchase. In navigating to those sites 55% used a search engine to go to the site, while 46% directly entered a URL. Approximately 10% followed a link from another site.
- In terms of the range of sources used by purchasers (both online and off), the top four in order were as follows: 1) Internet 2) print 3) word of mouth 4) retail/other.
- One of the conclusions of the study was that of the $32.5 billion spent on the five consumer electronics categories in the first six months of the year, online research influenced $25.1 billion of that spending. Among the online sources, the study also concluded that search had a direct or indirect influence on $15.2 billion of CE buying.
I’ve written this up in slightly more detail over at Search Engine Watch.
Overall, the findings indicate that the Internet as a medium is a critical influence on offline buying behavior, but not the exclusion of other sources including traditional media like newspapers and TV.
I also lump this phenomenon into the category of “local search” because most people, once they’ve done their research, are looking locally for a place to buy the desired product.
October 26, 2006 at 7:36 pm |
[...] From Greg Sterling comes word of a joint study from Yahoo! and the Consumer Electronics Association there was some compelling, if familiar, data showing that nearly three-quarters of shoppers who research electronics on the Internet end up buying the product at a bricks-and-mortar store. That jibes with the number we’ve been using in our pitch to retailers and consumers that we got last year courtesy of The Kelsey Group (not coincidentally, Sterling’s former employer). [...]
October 26, 2006 at 7:36 pm |
[...] From Greg Sterling comes word of a joint study from Yahoo! and the Consumer Electronics Association there was some compelling, if familiar, data showing that nearly three-quarters of shoppers who research electronics on the Internet end up buying the product at a bricks-and-mortar store. That jibes with the number we’ve been using in our pitch to retailers and consumers that we got last year courtesy of The Kelsey Group (not coincidentally, Sterling’s former employer). [...]
April 27, 2009 at 5:52 pm |
Hi Greg
Great blog – as always, you are spot on. Interestingly, only 3.8% of retail sales are online, leaving 96% in stores. Yet 14% of adspend now goes to online. That is clever, as that 10% “extra” is vital in driving folks to stores where they spend more on extras (impulse buys). Here’s an interesting little player showing the strategy at work:
http://walkthrough.liveadmaker.com/RadioShack_20090313
Cheers
Wayne
December 15, 2009 at 4:50 pm |
Most consumer make use of the internet(online store) to check/compare prices, taking a look at the products features. One factor that consumer buy offline is the shipping, shipping may take days (you’ll have to wait for it to arrive)