Online Purchases Reduce Offline Purchases
The majority of online buyers in the U.S. indicate that their online spending reduces their offline spending, according to a recent study conducted by the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future. More than 67% of respondents said that their online purchasing reduced their offline purchasing in 2007, compared to 65% in 2006. Nevertheless, in-store spending still outweighs online spending healthy margin.
The report titled “Retail Channel Surfers Prefer to Buy Offline,” conducted by Forrester Research, showed that during the last three months of 2007 U.S. online buyers spent an average of $511 in stores, compared to $313 online. Falling underneath these two channels, catalog ($48), phone ($43), and TV ($33) fell into line with significantly smaller figures.
For all channels, males spent more than females during the three month period.
A 2006 report conducted by the e-tailing group, in conjunction with J.C. Williams Group and StartSampling, listed the benefits of shopping online, in stores, and through a catalog, according to respondents.
For Internet shopping, benefits included: price/value, information, compare, and check availability.
Benefits to shopping in stores included: get it now, touch/feel, confidence builder, entertainment value, and social factor.
Catalog shopping’s benefits included: linear browse, portable, and visual temptation.
From the list, it might be expected that catalog shopping will slowly ebb away and give its ground to online shopping. All of the catalog channel’s benefits will be improved upon on Web sites, and there is little reason to think that catalog’s will continue to thrive as much as in-store shopping. The get it now, touch/feel, and social benefits to in-store shopping are unlikely to decline, and while online shopping’s popularity will grow, shopping in traditional stores will retain its strong appeals.
Source:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005927
