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Courtesy: eMarketer

For most of us, we’ve been singing the gospel of online for years to businesses, marketers, and perhaps to our own media company.  We have a ready arsenal of statistics on the number of Americans online and their tendency to research products online prior to purchase.  eMarket has publish an article titled “Retail shoppers hit the web first” based off a May 2008 Nielsen Online survey which helps give clarity to the entire purchasing cycle.

“Eight out of 10 respondents who had recently made consumer electronics purchases in a brick-and-mortar store said they had visited the store’s Website first, according to a May 2008 Nielsen Online survey. More than one-half said they purchased from the retailer on whose Website they had spent the most time.”

Now we can trace the line straight from the Internet to the point of purchase.

With more and more choices in product, people need more information and they turn to the web (more than friends and family).  The most recent metrics I’ve seen touted:

• 91% of online users are using search engines
• 86% researching a specific product
• 66% are conducting eCommerce

We can now add for electronics that 80% of those who have recently bought, had done their research online.  Although the study doesn’t drill down into other product or service categories, its a start.

For the frosting on the cake, the report also goes on to say that:

“The retailers also benefit from consumers’ tendency to make additional impulse purchases once they are in the store.”

For those of us in media, this is information that we must share with our organization, account executives, partners and advertisers to reevaluate our online offerings.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 7:10 am and is filed under Advertising, Marketing, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.