Nielsen Research: shoppers moved to e-commerce

A recent study from Nielsen Online shows that 80% of customers give preference to shopping online or at least exploring online store websites before they purchase some item of consumer electronics.

The motives inducing people to visit online stores are different. Some of them do it in order to avoid traveling expenses while others make visits to the websites just to save time and compare prices.

58% of the respondents confessed that if they had only one way to gather information about the goods they need, they would resort to Internet rather than to their relatives or friends.

In the first half of 2008 shoppers in the UK spent more than £26.5 billion online as per the IMRG Capgemini E-Retail Sales Index which is 38% higher against the same period in 2007.

Some analysts basing on the current trends make forecasts that online shopper spending it to reach up to 50% of all consumer spending within five years.

In June 2008 online shopping growth actually fell and it was for the first time since 2005. Despite this fact the report prompts that in light of economy slowdown more customers will go shopping online as most of them like bargains.