PowerReviews’ 2010 Social Shopping Study reveals that 50 percent of online shoppers conduct online product research for at least half of their purchases.

PowerReviews’ survey of 1,000 people who shop online at least four times a year and spend $250 or more per annum, also indicates that online shoppers tend to be either light or heavy researchers.

While 29 percent spend a few hours of research before making a purchase, 60 percent research for a week or more, and 11 percent conduct research for just a day.

Online shoppers also prefer doing their own online research than speak to a knowledgeable in-store sales assistant. This is because they believe online research saves them time (according to 79 percent of those surveyed), increases their confidence (83 percent) and provides them with product information they are either somewhat or very satisfied with.

The majority (57 percent) of shoppers begin their online research with a search engine. The three most popular sites for finding product information are retailer websites (65 percent), brand sites (58 percent) and Amazon.com (33 percent).

Only 6 percent of online shoppers rely on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter for conducting product research.

Related Articles:

• Apple, Facebook Top MyBrandz List of World’s 200 Top Brands
• 83 Percent of Online Shoppers Happy To Share Product Information
• Top 50 U.S. Websites for July 2011
• U.S. Households Save $150 Per Year in Consumer Rebates
• 7 Out of 10 Consumers Type Fake Info Into Online Forms

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 at 8:24 am and is filed under Ecommerce, Market Research, Mobile Marketing. 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.