Web 2.0 Benefits - Part Three Blog Facts

The past two blog entries have highlighted benefits of using Web 2.0 and social mediated forms of interaction to support online experiences. Enclosed below is the third blog entry of additional market statistics. For more information, do not hesitate to contact me directly at cindy@helixcommerce.com

Consumer Demand for Ask & Answer

•76% of online shoppers surveyed report that content is insufficient to complete research or purchase online “always, most often or some of the time.” (eTailing Group, 2007).

• Online businesses lose as many as 67% of consumers due to a lack of online product information. (Allurent).

• 83% of online shoppers would make purchases if sites offered increased interactive elements. (Allurent).

•One in four (24.5%) shoppers said they left a store because of a lack of assistance. (Shop.org, November 2007).

•90% of UK shoppers surveyed said they wish they could communicate directly with businesses – using live chat, forums or call-me-back facilities – via their websites; one in three require it from the UK businesses they currently use. (1&1, October 2007).

•42% of consumers said they prefer being able to find the answers they need online on their own if they had a question or wanted help while shopping online. (Harris Interactive, May 2007).

•The share of traffic to question-and-answer Web sites has more than doubled from 2007 to 2008 (HitWise, 2008).

•Yahoo Answers had 25.3 million visits in February 2008 (comScore Media Metrix, March 2008).

•68% of consumers trust “people like me” first for product advice. (Edelman Trust Barometer).

•42% of 1,179 online consumers surveyed have left a site without purchasing multiple products because they couldn’t get a question answered about one of the products in their shopping cart; 41% decided not to make a planned purchase because they couldn’t readily find a piece of information about the product or service. (JupiterResearch, September 2007).

Conversion Results

•Online shoppers who look at TripAdvisor reviews on the Hayes & Jarvis site book trips at double the rate of online shoppers who have not seen the TripAdvisor reviews, based on first four months after launch. (TripAdvisor, 2008).

•79% of online UK retailers surveyed reported that the main benefit of consumer-generated rating and reviews was that they improved site conversion rates. (eMarketer, 2007).

•Shoppers who browsed the site’s new "Top Rated Products" page, which features products rated most highly by customers, had a 59% higher conversion rate than the site average and spent 16% more per order than other browsers of products. (Bass Pro Shops).

•Shoppers who browsed the site's “Top Rated Products” page, which features products rated most highly by customers, had a 49% higher conversion rate than the site average and 63% more per order than other site shoppers. (PETCO).

•Giving shoppers the ability to sort products within a category by customer rating led to a sales increase of 41% per unique visitor.(PETCO).

•MarketingExperiments tested product conversion with and without product ratings by customers. Conversion nearly doubled, going from .44% to 1.04% after the same product displayed its five-star rating.(MarketingExperiments Journal).

•Conversion rates are higher on products with less than perfect reviews (less than 5 stars) than those without reviews at all,indicating that the customer feels that the product has been properly reviewed by other customers. (Burpee).

Check out the prior two blog entries for additional market facts to help justify your investments in Web 2.0 Innovation based solutions.