Are You A Social Researcher?
We have written a lot about how customer reviews have and will increase sales. So I was interested to read in Internet Retailer about a new shopping study from The E-Tailing Group titled “Social Shopping Study 2007” which showed that the growth in online customer reviews has led to a new breed of shopper called the “Social Researcher”. This social researcher is someone who puts significant emphasis on peer feedback in product reviews when making online and offline purchasing decisions.
The E-Tailing Group identified social researchers as shoppers who actively seek out and read customer reviews prior to making a purchase always or most of the time, according to the study. On average, this group consulted reviews at a rate 20% higher than the average online shopper in all areas:
Highlights from the 1,200 customers responding to the survey were:
- 64% research products online more than half the time, whether they buy the product in the store, online or from a catalog.
- 78% of the Social Researchers indicate they spend more than 10 minutes of time in the review reading process
- 86% find customer reviews extremely or very important
- 76% find “top rated product” lists to be extremely or very important
I was amazed that 65% of the respondents considered themselves to be social researchers. The study surveyed consumers who shop online at least four times per years, spending $500 or more annually so the numbers might be a little skewed than what the average shopper feels. However:
“Social Researchers are not only teaching us a lot about the evolution of online shopping, they are driving the direction of consumer-generated content and peer feedback,” says Lauren Freedman, president of The E-Tailing Group, a Chicago-based research and consulting firm focused on online retailing. “This makes customer reviews even more relevant to the online shopper and even more essential for integration on merchants’ sites.”
The study also found that 82% of the shoppers surveyed found reading reviews better than researching a product in-store with a knowledgeable sales associate, and 93% indicated they are likely to start their shopping process on a web site that offers “social navigation.”
“I knew there was significant interest in customer reviews but I was startled at the passion, intensity of interest and the integral nature that reviews play in online and cross-channel shopping,” Freedman says. “This influence turns the table on the customer/merchant relationship and ensures that reviews are only the beginning of this new shopping dynamic.”
Social Researchers also were 76% more likely to shop on a retailer site offering social navigation—the ability to narrow product selections based on reviews from like-minded people with similar interests—than on a competing site.
In addition, study participants found it extremely or very helpful to narrow product selection based on feedback from people “just like them”—or people with like interests (64%), people with similar uses (59%) for the product such as “for travel” or “for home office;” and from those who sought out the same product attributes (56%) such as durable, lightweight or easy to use.
81% of consumers use customer reviews to decide between two or three products or to confirm that their final selection is the right one. However, only 40% of consumers actually start the shopping process using reviews, meaning shoppers leave retail sites during the shopping process to seek out reviews. This last point is interesting and begs a follow-up question. Are consumers leaving product sites before making a final buying decision because they want unbiased product reviews or are they leaving because the product web sites do not have any product reviews to begin with?
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization, Social Retailing : Comments (0) : Nov 12th, 2007
