Purchase Bulleted List
Online Seeking And Purchasing
[Graph]
- The use of the Web for gathering purchase related material and making actual
purchases has increased significantly in the past year. The most popular items
bought and information gathered on are computer software and hardware. Over half
of the users report using the Web to gather information on software and hardware,
with more people using he Web for items over $50 than for items under $50. This
gathering corresponds to purchases as well, with between 15% and 30% of
the users making online purchases for hardware and software of various prices
(15.09% for hardware under $50, 17.43 for hardware over $50, 29.11% for software
under $50, and 20.84% for software over $50).
- Other popular items sought and bought over the Web include: travel arrangements (48.87%
sought, 20.63% bought), books and magazines (43.16% sought, 18.89% bought), and
musical tapes, cd's, albums (36.65% sought, 13.66% bought). This is a substantial increase
compared to a year ago, where 44% sought, 9% bought travel arrangements, 39% sought, 11%
bought books and magazines, 38% sought, 9% bought musical tapes, cd's, albums. Stated
differently, twice as many people made purchases of travel arrangements, 6% more bought
books, and 4% more bought books. Just about all other areas, including apparel, legal
services, and personal items have also shown increases in gathering and purchases though
the Web. As reported in Primary Uses of the Web,,
shopping has nearly doubled to roughly one out of every five users shopping via the Web.
The Web is truly becoming a viable medium for electronic commerce albeit slowly but surely.
Seeking Across Mediums
[Graph]
- Magazines and newspapers continue to be the major source of information gathering behavior.
However, online seeking of this information almost always performed more than finding the information
via direct mail. The Web excels at providing users with information about Web services (70.53%),
software (over $50 66.02%, under $50 59.99%), hardware (over $50 65.50%, under $50 50.87%),
travel arrangements (48.87%), and books/magazines (43.16%). For personal items like sunglasses,
traditional product information is used more than 3 times that of online sources (the biggest difference
between online and traditional sources). However, the gap reduces to under 10% for items like
software and hardware. Thus, as the diversity of products that are available online increases, the
turning of users to online sources to perform product research is expected to grow.
As reported in Product Information,, only 7.83% of the
users report never having used the Web to access product information.
