Survey: 97% Use Online For Local Shopping
CHANTILLY, Va. – Nearly all online consumers - 97 percent - now use online media when researching products or services in their local area, according to BIA/Kelsey’s latest consumer tracking study.
“The Internet has indeed become an integral part of consumers’ local commercial activity,” said Steve Marshall, director of research, BIA/Kelsey. “The data suggest we’re at an inflection point where the balance of power in local shopping is shifting to online.”
The User View Wave VII survey, conducted with research partner ConStat, showed search engines with a 2-to-1 lead over online Yellow Pages:
- 90 percent use search engines
- 48 percent use Internet Yellow Pages
- 24 percent use vertical sites
- 42 percent use comparison shopping sites.
(image:kelsey-march2010-local-shopping-sources.jpg aspect:original align:right) The February survey of 1,002 consumers was conducted for home, office and mobile Internet users. It also showed:
- Consumers used 7.9 different media sources when shopping for products or services in their local area, up from 6.5 sources in 2009 and 5.8 in 2008, revealing a noteworthy increase in audience fragmentation.
- 58 percent of respondents report using an online coupon when shopping for products or services in their local area in the past year.
- 19 percent of respondents report making an appointment online in the past six months for a service other than a restaurant reservation (e.g., business appointment, health-care appointment, auto service or personal service such as a beauty shop).
“The increase in audience fragmentation presents challenges for advertisers looking to connect with local consumers,” said Peter Krasilovsky, vice president. “These challenges may be outweighed by the targeting opportunities available with tools like coupon promotions and appointment scheduling, the latter being among the best lead sources possible, since you know where people are actually going.”