Web Detectives
Internet proving an increasing influence on in-store toy purchases
By Staff -- Playthings, 11/1/2005
MILWAUKEE—In 2004, 76.4 million U.S. consumers made offline purchases impacted by online information, up 27 percent from the prior year. That’s what Milwaukee–based Dieringer Research concluded through tracking data from its annual telephone poll, the American Interactive Consumer Survey (AICS). (See chart on page 34).
According to the Dieringer’s research, toys, games and hobby products are among the most frequently researched, second only to electronics, which has been steadily segueing into the toy department.
Consumers who do prior research online are serious shoppers and important to brick-and-mortar stores; three-fourths of those interviewed say they go to their local store to make a purchase within a week of their online research. Almost half say they expect to do more online research before making a purchase in 2005, but only one-third say they expect to actually make a purchase online in 2005.
The Web2Store Benchmark Survey underscores the need for retailers to have their own Web site. About three-fourths of consumers who research their purchase online go to retailers’ Web sites. Those consumers who are actually researching online before shopping at a local store are some of the most desirable ones around.
- As a group, they are well-heeled—27 percent have incomes of $75,000 or more; 13 percent have incomes of $100,000 or more.
- More than half are between the ages of 25 and 44—the parenting years.
- The group is also well-educated. Nearly one-fourth of consumers researching online have a graduate degree, another one-fourth have a bachelor’s degree.
The Dieringer Research Group conducted 1,101 Web-based interviews with Web2Store (W2S) shoppers during the last week of December 2004, and the first week of January 2005. To qualify, survey respondents must have used the Internet for product or store research prior to making a local shopping trip during the final three months of 2004, which included the year-end holiday shopping season. Panelists were drawn from the SurveySpot online panel maintained by Survey Sampling International.
The survey sample was balanced by age, gender, education and census region to represent offline shoppers influenced by online information, as reported in the annual AICS, also conducted by Dieringer. Sixty percent of survey respondents sampled qualified as W2S shoppers.
Dieringer designed the survey questionnaire in consultation with ShopLocal.com and other charter sponsors. In the U.S. Web2Store Benchmark Survey, the results of the overall survey sample are considered representative to within +/- 2.95 percent at the 95 percent confidence level of Web2Store shoppers found on the SSI SurveySpot Online Panel during the final quarter of 2004.
Additional survey results are available from The Dieringer Research Group. See page 34 for results of the Web2Store survey.
