As consumers felt the recession bite, they started to indulge more in researching a product before making that final purchase to ensure their money was well spent.
Now, even though the recession is loosening its grip on the British economy, email marketing company Pure 360 has found that consumers are not giving the research habit the boot.
If anything, the time spent researching is still spiralling upwards. Of Pure 360’s respondents, 85% said they spend more time than ever in the planning stage before committing to a buy.
Vertical research
The average time spent looking into indulgences such as fashion and restaurants is two hours. For essentials like household products, technology and tradespeople it is five hours. While one offs including cars, holidays and homes can take 21 hours.
To influence these consumers, advertisers might need to seek an alternative to standard marketing messages and social media as only 25% and 33% respectively pay attention to these channels.
Instead, marketers might want to look at consumer reviews, with 76% revealing that they pay attention to insights from other web users. Split down in into genders, 63% of men were influenced by customer reviews compared to 73% of women.
Check out more insights from Pure 360’s Confessions of a Shopping Nation whitepaper in the following infographic:
