Online shopping catching on, says survey

In a recent study on net shopping by the Internet and Mobile Association of India(IMAI) and Cross Tab Marketing Services, inolving 1,240 persons, 93 per cent of the respondents strongly supported online shopping and said they would recommend it as the best way to shop, 52 per cent believed consumer reviews are important.

A significant 31 per cent said they reached a shopping site through word of mouth, while 18 per cent said they shop on a particular website because of word of mouth endorsement.

Says Subho Ray, President, IAMI, "Referrals given by online shoppers work because they come from a trusted source since the messenger (the consumer) is more credible and trusted than the advertiser or marketer".

The findings show that online shopping is gaining more acceptance. Also, the trust of 52 per cent respondents who believed that consumer reviews are important, underlines the importance of consumer review sites. The study also clearly establishes the dominance of the P2P (people to people) reference in the online shopping space.

Some statistics thrown up by the study indicate that 67 per cent of online shoppers have shopped online as recently as 3 months before, 53 per cent have shopped online more than 5 times and, importantly, 27 per cent have shopped online more than 10 times.

If that coroborates the general perception that on-line shopping has made its mark in the Indian marketplace, some pointers are quite predictable.

The study says 25 per cent of regular shoppers are in the 18-25 age bracket, 46 per cent are in the 26-35 age group and 18 per cent in the 36-45 age group. 85 per cent of online shoppers are male though women shoppers, at 15 per cent, are fast catching up.

According to the study, the female audience would be at 15 million by the year 2007-2008.

Other, rather well-known findings, include home delivery, time saving, ease of use, 24X7 factor and ready product comparison as reasons that drive the consumers' preference for online shopping.