Speaking of the Internet

I f you’re like many, you know that e-commerce is booming and that online sales are increasing. What you may be unclear about is who  is buying and why.

Gomez Advisors, a provider of e-commerce research and analysis, may be able to help. They recently released a study entitled The State of Retail E-Commerce: Identifying and Capturing the Active Online Buyer. The study is an extensive report based on over 23,000 surveys of U.S. online consumers and is the largest survey to date that focuses exclusively on customer acquisition and the shopping activities of online consumers.

The study, which costs $15,000, offers insight into emerging customer markets, purchasing behavior, and e-commerce growth opportunities. But, in case you don’t happen to have the extra cash lying around, following is a quick peek at what Gomez Advisors found.

• Hyper Buyers (those who buy online at least once every two weeks) make up just 19% of the online population, but are responsible for 50% of all e-commerce spending.

• Hyper Buyers overwhelmingly cite convenience—not price or selection—as their primary motivation to purchase online.

• Moderate Buyers (those who buy online once every 1 to 6 months) account for the remaining 50% of e-commerce spending. They also cite convenience as a primary motivator to purchasing online.

• Both Moderate and Hyper buyers show a clear propensity to go directly to their retailer of choice by directly typing in the URL address.

• The top two online activities of both Hyper and Moderate Buyers are e-mailing and reading news online. More than 75% of the Internet population are reading news online.

The State of Retail E-Commerce: Identifying and Capturing the Active Online Buyer, which includes a complete PowerPoint presentation with all graphics created and the full questionnaire, can be obtained by contacting Scott Fay at  (781) 257-2048 or sfay@gomez.com.

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