How customer opinions influence online shoppers' purchasing decisions
ONLINE SHOPPING A study by ECC Cologne and iAdvize shows where customers seek advice before buying online. The younger generation reads customer reviews more frequently than the average.93 percent of online shoppers have already looked at customer opinions on the Internet before placing an online order. 90 percent of them in an online store. This makes online stores the most relevant platform for customer reviews. Also popular are review portals such as ciao.de, which are used by half of online shoppers (55%), followed by internet forums with 41%. Only 18 percent use Facebook to read customer opinions. Video portals and blogs are of comparatively little importance to online shoppers. These are the results of a study conducted by ECC Cologne and iAdvize among 500 German online shoppers.Smart natives use fewer review portals The picture is somewhat different for the next generation of shoppers: the smart natives. The generation aged between 20 and 25, who use their smartphones intensively, tend to read customer opinions on blogs much more frequently than the online shoppers surveyed overall (41% versus 16%). They are almost twice as likely to look for reviews from other customers on video portals (32% versus 17%). Internet forums (56 percent versus 41 percent) and Facebook are also more popular sources of information. On the other hand, they are less likely to use traditional review portals (42% versus 55%). However, the online store is also the most important place for the younger target group to find out about reviews from other customers (93%). Compared to all online shoppers, smart natives engage more frequently with customer reviews: Nine out of ten do this for at least every third order, compared to eight out of ten among all respondents.Customer opinions are sales driversHowever, the influence of customer opinions on purchasing behavior is again similar in both groups: opinions of other customers on the Internet have led nine out of ten to make a purchase at least once. Julien Hervouët, CEO of iAdvizecomments on the results: "Forward-looking online retailers should understand that customer opinions are a sales driver now and in the future. And for all generations. This effect can be further increased if stores integrate their customers as brand ambassadors directly into customer service alongside professional call center agents and let them speak for their brand."About the studyFor the study "Advice at eye level: The role of customer opinions in online shopping", ECC Cologne conducted an online survey of 500 online shoppers from Germany in July 2015 on behalf of iAdvize. Online shoppers are defined here as people who have shopped in one of the seven sectors surveyed (CE & electronics, fashion & accessories, books & media, living & furnishing, sport & leisure, DIY & gardening, tourism) or at least planned to do so. An internet-representative quota of the results by age and gender was carried out for German internet users. The sample size of smart natives aged 20 to 25 (n=62) only allows tendency statements to be made.
