SavvyOnlineShopper.com

Online Shopping Facts & Statistics for Media Reps

It's difficult to keep up to date with the facts and statistics surrounding online shopping. The most recent and most pertinent that I've been able to find are on this page.

Facts for the second quarter of 2007 are currently being uploaded and should be finished by mid-July.

2007

June '07: The second annual Holiday Shopping Study from Advertising.com found 84% of those surveyed plan to spend online this year at the same as or higher levels than they did last year. The survey of shoppers’ intentions also indicates this will be a longer holiday buying cycle than last year’s. 50% of those surveyed plan to start shopping for holiday gifts in October or earlier. Last year, 44% of survey respondents said they would start shopping after Thanksgiving, while 15% said they wouldn’t begin shopping until the last two weeks of December. Source: Advertising.com
June '07: The Internet is the top source for researching digital cameras and televisions. And shoppers who research online first spend more in the the store, according to a study by Yahoo and ChannelForce. Source: E-Consultancy.com
June '07: Among the most popular items purchased fraudulently are digital cameras, laptop computers, iPods, computer memory cards and team merchandise from the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees baseball teams. The 2006 holiday shopping season also showed a major run on last-minute gift items, a hot new category for e-retailers designed to service the late shopper. Items in this category included Moet & Chandon Brut champagne and the Star Wars Mr. Potato Head, a must-have item on many children’s Christmas lists. Source: Retail Decisions
June '07: On average, only 66% of merchants and other organizations involved in processing payment card data encrypt that data for transmission over the Internet, compared to 100% among best-in-class organizations. Source: Aberdeen Research Group report, "Protecting Customer Data" as reported by Internet Retailer
June '07: 80 percent of respondents indicated that the availability of “a safe and secure online payment option” was the most important factor when shopping online. Source: J.C. Williams Group for MODASolutions
June '07: 36% of U.S. consumers will not use a payment card to make a purchase at an unknown web merchant because of overall concerns about security breaches in networked data. Source: The “2007 Consumer Survey on Data” from Ponemon Institute & Vonta
May '07: Customers are more satisfied with online shopping vs. brick-and-mortar shopping. For the fourth quarter of 2006, customer satisfaction with bricks-and-mortar retail registered 74.4 on the 100-point satisfaction index, up 2.8% from 72.4 for the same period in 2005. However, customer satisfaction with Internet retail for Q4 2006 hit 83, up 2.5% from 81 in 2005. Source: ForeSee Results and University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index, as reported by Internet Retailer
May '07: Netflix, QVC.com and Amazon do the best job satisfying their site visitors, according to the ForeSee Results Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index released today. As a category, retailers selling books, CDs, and DVDs tend to score best overall, while the categories of apparel & accessory retailers and computer/electronics retailers generally perform below average. Other customer favorites include Amazon.com (83), Barnes & Noble’s website, BN.com (82), DrsFosterSmith.com (81), LLBean.com (79) and Apple.com (79). The lowest scorers include PCMall.com and PCConnection.com, each with a score of 67. Home Depot.com (69), Lowes.com (70), and BestBuy.com (71) are also low on the list. Source: ForeSee Results
Feb. '07: 68% of US consumers are "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" that their credit or debit card information would be stolen if they shopped online. Source: "Security and ID Theft - US" report from Mintel
Feb. '07: 2006 online retail spending reached a record $102 billion, a 24% increase over 2005. Source: comScore Networks
Feb. '07: 41% of Internet users surveyed by the investment firm Cowen and Company who said that they are going to increase their e-commerce spending in 2007.
Feb. '07: US online retail sales to grow by 16% in 2007, reaching $116 billion. Source: Freeman Evans, a JupiterResearch analyst and the author of the "US Online Retail Forecast: 2006-2011" report
Feb. '07: More fraud occurs in traditional physical channels, such as in-person transactions and by the direct theft of personal data by individuals, than online. In fact, overall identity fraud is down in the US, dropping 12% in 2006, which translates into a total fraud reduction of $6.4 billion for the year. Source: "2007 Identity Fraud Survey Report," released by the Better Business Bureau (BBB)
Feb. '07: This year the Internet will make up over half of all of the travel industry's transactions. The US online travel marketplace is estimated at $68 billion. 67% of respondents who will use the Internet to help plan their upcoming travel will conduct travel research as well as make online travel transactions, and 33% will use the Web solely as an information resource.

Women placed much greater importance than men on travel promotions and specials, 55% vs. 45%, respectively. Source: Burst Media, based on data from PhoCusWright Research
Jan. '07: Consumers clicking on affiliate links tend to spend more than the average Internet shopper and are 17% more likely than the average Internet shopper to have household incomes greater than $75,000 a year. Source: comScore Networks, in a study commissioned by DoubleClick
Jan. '07: Online holiday e-commerce accounted for $24.6 billion, up 26 percent versus last year.

Wednesday, December 13 marked the heaviest online spending day of 2006 with $667 million spent, followed by Monday, December 11 ($661 million) and Monday, December 4 ($648 million) Monday, November 27 (“Cyber Monday”) was surpassed 11 times during the subsequent weeks of the holiday season. Source: comScore Networks

2006

Dec. '06: 70% of US adults use the Internet, up from 66% (about 133 million adults) a year earlier. As of 8/06, 71% of internet users have bought a product online. Source: Pew/Internet Research
Nov. '06: Amazon.com is the best company for customer service, followed by Nordstrom, L.L. Bean, Overstock.com and Lane Bryant. Also in the top 10 are Boscov's, Kohl's, REI, Lands' End and Macy's. Source: The National Retail Federation's (NRF) second annual customer service survey.
Nov. '06: Shoppers expected to hand over $791.10 each for gifts this holiday season and spend a quarter of that on the Internet.

Nearly half of consumers say they plan to make at least one holiday purchase online, up from only 36 percent three years ago. And almost 90 percent say they either regularly or occasionally examine products online before buying in a store.

Those doing Internet research frequently are shopping for electronics (39.3 percent), appliances (20 percent) and home improvement items, (18 percent). Just over 16 percent say they have researched medicines, vitamins and supplements before purchasing in a store, and 16.1 percent say they have checked out shoes online before heading to a store to buy them. Source: Survey from BIGresearch for the National Retail Federation’s shop.org site
Oct. '06: The UK government-backed Get Safe Online study found that consumers are more worried about falling victim to cyber crime (21%) than mugging, car theft or burglary (16%). 24% refuse to bank online and 18% won't shop online.
Jan. '06: Google was the most popular search engine used for online purchases during the December '05 shopping period. Auction site eBay Inc, retailer Amazon.com, Google's Froogle and Shopzilla's BizRate were the four most popular shopping sites originating in December from Google, representing 18.1% of the retailer traffic generated. Source: Hitwise, an Internet measurement company.