Households Use the Internet Shopping Locally for Products and Services

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New Research by The Kelsey Group and ConStat Indicates 70% of U.S. Households Now Use the Internet When Shopping Locally for Products and Services

These are figures from the USA but are New Zealand households any different. What drives business, the consumer wanting something or the business deciding what will be provided. The world is changing, the customer is no longer content to wait, they go searching on the Internet and businesses had better be there. (Opportunities are never lost, they go to someone else).

Let us not think that it is all USA. From the NZ Marketing Magazine article comes the comments:

"When it comes to influencing New Zealand advertising, British is considered best".

"If it happens over there it usually ( and eventually) happens here".

"Internet advertising looks to show the biggest increase, again. In the first half of 2004, the medium grew by a staggering 76 percent on the same period in 2003 according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau."

"For the first time ever, UK online adspend beat radio"

The media agency Carat predicts the Internet will become an essential part of the marketer's armoury over the next few years.

Consider this from the recent Live 8

TV Ratings released Wednesday show that the eight-hour live broadcast of Live 8 performances that aired Saturday on both MTV and sister station VH1 had an average viewership of only 2.2 million viewers - less than the average audience for the Saturday afternoon airing of the 1999 film "Toy Story 2" on the Disney Channel.

Internet Result: Jim Bankoff, AOL's executive vice president of programming and products, said more people watched this event (on the Internet) than any other streamed event on AOL, including the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Five million unique users visited AOL Music for its free streaming video from the concerts. At peak moments, the site was streaming 175,000 simultaneous video broadcasts, which AOL said was an Internet record

Article from a New Zealand Reviewer
The Internet Changes Everything. Again. Maybe it's just us, but it seems that everywhere we turn lately, we read some new stats proclaiming the supremacy of the Internet in yet another arena. For example:

More consumers are going to Internet search engines for local shopping information rather than their phone books. New research from the Kelsey Group and ConStat shows that 70% of US adults use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally for products and services - compared with 62% for the trusty Yellow Pages.

New figures estimate that online advertising spend in the UK rose by over? 46% in 2004 to Ł597m, as the medium closed in on radio advertising in terms of market share. Internet adspending, at 3.2% of total UK spend, is on the verge of taking over from radio, which accounted for 3.3% of spend. (It has now exceeded radio spend)

Now that eight in 10 US consumers have access to the Internet from any location, up from half in 1999, the percent of Americans who have listened to audio or watched video on the Internet in the past month has grown to 22 percent or 55 million Americans, up from 10 percent five years ago.

Whereas before Internet broadcast usage tended to be a youth phenomenon, it is now more mainstream, among adults 25-to-54. About 20 million Americans or 8 percent of the population listened to Internet radio last week and about 20 million watched Internet video in the past week.

New Zealand internet penetration is now at similar levels to the US, with more than 80% of the Under 60s enjoying access to the internet from at least one location. Levels of penetration remain high across most ethnic groupings as well, except for Pacific Islanders whose access levels are around 65%, depending on nationality.

However limited local content means that many of the international hot buttons are denied us, providing at least some protection for local media (for now). On the other hand, the global attractions flashing across our screen means that our hearts and minds are often lost to local media anyway ...

Teens shop online--but they`re SO going to the store to buy

US teens and the Internet are much on the minds of researchers these days. Harris Interactive has been studying how teens shop online. Their conclusion: Teens use the web for lots of research and some buying. They don`t buy more online for a few prime reasons, the main one being that Mom and Dad won`t let them. Second, they like paying shipping about as much as adults (not very much) and third, they don`t have a way to pay. But this is a generation that is growing up on the web and so their online shopping is sure to grow as they do.

Already, teens spend US$22 billion a year online, which represents 16% of their total spending, and make half-a-dozen online purchases a year. And they're big eBay users: a third of 10-17 year olds have bought at an online auction, and half of 18-21-year-olds have done likewise. eBay is the notable exception to the rule that teenagers crave gilt and flash from their Web sites. The site is by far the most popular online shopping destination for teenagers. According to ComScore Media Metrix, eBay had nearly 5 million visitors between the ages of 12 and 17 in January 2005, compared with about 3 million for Amazon.com, which ranked second.

Because teens generally don't have credit cards, they don't have the means for standard pick-and-click shopping. But that doesn't mean Web retailers aren't out to woo them.

The mall has gone cyber. Instead of being shuttled to and fro in their parents' cars, teens can now shop their hearts out in front of the home computer. And most online teen retailers let kids compile all the stuff of their dreams in a wish list, which parents looking for gift ideas can view.

Given the size of the current teenage market-and how much teenagers will be able to spend once they have their own credit cards-merchants are willing to try just about anything. According to Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU), the population of teenagers will reach about 34 million within the next five years, up from about 30 million in 1997 and about 33.5 million at present.

According to a study released late last year by TRU, about 49 percent of adolescent boys have bought something online, versus 41 percent of teenage girls. Fifty-four percent of 16- and 17-year-olds have shopped online. "Sixteen seems to be the magic number online," said Rob Callender, the trends director at TRU. "They can pilot around a car, which increases the amount they can earn. And when parents see them handle these responsibilities, they feel better about giving them a credit card for an online purchase."

So - talk to teens online, but send them to the mall to buy. Got it.

People research on-line and buy off-line. Retailers your market is out there on the Internet. (July 2005)

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