Search and Online Consumer Purchasing

A recent study, sponsored by Google, entitled “The Role of Search in Consumer Buying” analyzed the impact of web search on consumers’ holiday-related purchases completed online and offline during November and December 2005, across 11 product categories. The study assessed the searching behavior of 83 million Americans who conducted more than 552 million searches in the categories analyzed using one or more of the 24 leading search engines.

The results confirm the importance of search in influencing offline buying, confirming that 25 percent of searchers purchased an item directly related to their query, and that of those buyers, 37 percent completed their purchase online. An even greater 63 percent completed a purchase offline following their search activity.

This research should have impact on how brick and mortar shops draft their web pages, and should encourage store owners that also offer e-commerce capabilities to combine emphasis on both online and offline purchasing. This is another boon in the rising "local Internet marketing" market which has been growing leaps and bounds with numerous new web sites encouraging such services.