Posted by The Internet really is changing everything we know about brands and building loyalty online.
There were many stats, graphs and quotes tossed around over the course of the past two days at the Shop.org Annual Summit 08 in Las Vegas. Some of them were pretty shocking (and impressive).
This one from Don Tapscott (author of Wikinomics and the soon-to-be-released book, Grown Up Digital):
– 58% of people said that having fun with a product is as important as what it does.
These from Sucharita Mulpuru (Senior Analyst – Retail, Forrester Research) during her morning keynote session: The State of Retailing Online:
– 70 million of the 90 million homes in the United States that are online have broadband connection speed.
– 38% of people surveyed said they would pay more for a product that was environmentally friendlier.
– 31% said that they shop online due to the high price of gas (no need to use the car when you shop online).
– There are more PayPal accounts than Visa card holders.
– 60% percent of adults connect to the Internet at home (versus the office – which was somewhere under 10%).
– 65% percent of people said they would scale back their online shopping significantly if a tax is introduced for buying online.
Also, if you think branding your website is not important, think again. According to the Forrester Research and Shop.org survey:
44% of people only visit one website when looking to buy something online and 24% shop around to two websites. That number drops dramatically when looking at the percentage of people who dig around at three or more websites for the best price.
That was the biggest shocker.
Just when you thought the Web was all about people hunting down the best price and free shipping, they state otherwise. Companies like Amazon and Zappos have done such a great job at branding their stores online that 44% of all online shoppers go to the websites that have built-up the most trust, value and brand power to them.
Who would have thought?
Never another podcast episode or article 
Mitch, I think that last “shocking” statistic goes to the thesis covered in the book “The Paradox of Choice,” by Barry Schwartz (who’s spoken at TED, by the way). Most people are simply overwhelmed by too many choices. Give them a few simple choices, and they feel much more comfortable. Maybe that’s what’s at play here?
Some of that data is interesting, but I call shenanigans on the Internet at work being only 10%. Any and all web traffic data shows huge spikes during business hours, showing how typical people are actually doing their web surfing at work (rather than home). There’s a reason they call it Cyber Monday too, that more people purchase online the monday AFTER thanksgiving, rather than at home over the weekend.
And now, we can even follow the elections in Canada through direct connection to Twitter :
electopinion.ca follows Twitter users blogging about the Canadian federal campaign. A mix of posts made by the chiefs, the press or the touring team and the different medias and citizens.
That’s amazing!
Brand knowledge is one of the only sources a web user will have short of doing actual research on the company. Some less known companies include customer comments, to create trust and value but that won’t be enough.
These stats are insightful. I especially like the second last fact Mitch posted, “44% visit only one website when shopping online;” I am one of these shoppers.
To identify and build your brand loyalty an online option such as customer comments are important, but more so is the quality of your website and associated visuals. If a customer sees an advertisement for a company selling socks online, visits the site and is disapproving of it, they will
never buy from the site because they do not trust it. If your website looks cheap, chances are no
one will stick around long enough to bother with the customer comments. Your visual brand image is a key component in receiving positive customer regard.