Most purchases start with product searches, study finds

by Mike Essex on 30th July 2010

The majority of consumers utilise a mixture of search engines and site search when looking to make a retail purchase, new research has found.

According to a study by comScore that could prove useful to providers of SEO services, 18 per cent of people start their shopping process by visiting a search engine and then 37 per cent move on to a retail website as their next step.

However, 19 per cent of consumers search for products on retail websites themselves in order to compare prices, brands and feature information.

The research took data from more than 1,100 respondents who had recently researched, browsed or purchased computers or consumer electronics.

Earlier this month, it was suggested that online companies may wish to offer free shipping to their customers as an incentive to purchase, after content quality analyst Noah Belson pointed out on the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog that this is increasingly attractive to consumers.