How do we shop on the Internet?

20 Jun 2008

For 51% of their purchases, Belgians who have access to the Internet go surfing to determine what they will buy and where they will buy it. So, searching online for information concerning the purchase is much more important than actually purchasing over the Internet. The biggest obstacle for the consumer is the over-abundance of information. Despite the Internet’s great importance as a source of information, Belgian websites are lagging behind their international sector-peers.

These are the results of an online study, conducted by InSites Consulting and Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, involving 2000 consumers that have recently made a purchase, Blog research with consumers in the process of making a purchase, and an analysis of 120 Belgian and international websites.

Shopping and purchasing begin more and more often at home, … 

No less than 51% of all reported purchases take place after consultation of one or more websites. This figure runs up to even 83% for cars, although it’s only 40% for clothing for adults. The web’s influence on the purchasing process is greatest for the purchase of electronics and least for the purchase of children’s clothing.

… can take a lot of time, ... 

The duration of the entire purchasing process varies from 14 days for children’s clothing, to a month for household appliances or do-it-yourself items, to over two months for electronics, and even three months for a car. For 59% of the respondents, the process first entails an exploration phase, in which they collect general information about the product. 62% report that they go through a comparison phase, in which they collect specific information about alternatives and compare one alternative to another. Finally, two out of three respondents make a conscious choice for a particular product or brand, while 82% choose a particular store or dealer.

However, according to Christophe Vergult, Director of Customer Experience Research at InSites, it’s incorrect to think that the consumer goes from one phase to the other in an orderly fashion: “In actual fact, the phases can all run together. We do know that the Internet’s influence is greatest in the exploration phase.”

… and usually still end up in the shop. 

It’s noteworthy that barely 4% of the reported purchases ultimately take place online, while 91% are carried out in brick-and-mortar shops and at dealers. “The study confirms that the Belgian consumer buys less over the Internet than, for example, the Dutch or the British,” explains Gino Van Ossel, Professor of Retail Marketing at Vlerick Management School. “One explanation is that the shop offering is very large in Belgium, with shops along the highways as well as in the city centres. So, a consumer never has to travel very far. In addition, mail order has never been as successful in Belgium as it has been in our neighbouring countries.”

Another explanation is that Belgians are less trustful of making purchases via the Internet.

How new is the new (wo)man? 

Furthermore, although just about as many women as men go online, their behaviour is noticeably different. For the purchase that they carried out, 16% of the women visited only websites of shops, as opposed to just 9% of the men. Then again, men visit only websites of brands more than women do.

Their behaviour also differs for the same product. About 33% of the women, for example, go surfing before buying children’s clothes, compared to just 15% of the male buyers of children’s clothing. On the other hand, even vacuum cleaners and washing machines are ‘toys for boys’: 65% of the men who buy household appliances go online to look for information, compared to only 28% of the female shoppers for these products.

According to Van Ossel, this has to do with a difference in perspective: “For the average woman, such an appliance is strictly functional, but for some men it can have a technological aspect. And when that intrigues him, he goes surfing to find out more about it. In the case of children’s clothing, we see just the opposite.”

Help, I’m drowning! 

From the Blog research − where consumers could regularly talk about their experiences during the purchasing process on a personal Internet page − it is abundantly clear that the consumer is drowning in a sea of information. “The consumer can no longer see the trees for the forest. He finds so much information that he simply logs off.” Then, according to Vergult, a visit to the store becomes the solution.

This poses a large challenge for the sector: retail businesses as well as proprietary brand manufacturers would do well to empathise as much as possible with the consumer’s search process. By offering only relevant information, and providing it in as customer-centric a way as possible, a website can win the consumer over and lead him or her to choose the right product, from the right brand and the right point-of-sale.

There’s a lot of work to be done

Unfortunately, this is not the case often enough today. Parallel with the consumer study, 120 Belgian and international websites were screened regarding their customer-friendliness.

Research shows that the websites of retailers with stores in Belgium score lower than their sector-counterparts in other countries. These websites score 24% lower with respect to the ease with which all relevant information can be found on the site, and 30% lower for the completeness of the information provided.

What can the sector do? 

Proprietary brand manufacturers and retail businesses can distinguish themselves by making their website the reference for the purchase of particular products. This way, they can influence the choice of product, brand and shop to their advantage.

To that end, they need to guide the consumer adroitly through the flood of information. The specific approach will depend on the type of product and the phase of the purchasing process.

Because one thing is clear: the one-and-only, ideal Internet strategy doesn’t exist.

Background of the study

These research data are the result of an online market study conducted by Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School and the InSites Consulting research bureau.

The aim of the research was to map out how consumers use the Internet to make purchases in 6 product categories: cars, electronics (mobile phones, MP3 players, PCs, TVs, etc.), large household appliances (washing machines, etc.), decoration materials, do-it-yourself products, and clothing (for both adults and children).

In total, 2000 consumers who had recently purchased one of the above products participated in this study. The figures are representative for Belgian Internet users (starting at 18 years of age) with respect to age, gender and experience with the Internet. These quantitative results are supplemented by Blog research, in which respondents described their experiences during a purchasing process. Finally, 120 websites were screened against 78 criteria in order to assess their customer-friendliness in the context of the purchasing process.

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