Let’s see, according to a new online survey 87 percent of people occasionally or regularly research their products online, with Google the first choice for product research of 22 percent, more than than Yahoo, Amazon and eBay combined, before going to a store in person.
So, out of 1000 people, 870 search online for consumer electronics before buying anything and of the 870, 176 people search at Google first (22%).
According to Marketingshift retailers don’t feel they can tie the search behavior back to purchases of their products. That’s not the fault of search - it’s more likely retailers need to figure out how to identify people who found the product they bought first online when they come into the store to buy it (by giving a different part number on line than what is available in the store or by offering to print up a label/order form/ discount form that is handed over to the store where you but the product - thereby making a connection by the web data and the actual puchase.
