Saturday, November 24, 2007

Customers Consumption Habits are Changing

If you are selling a product at retail, its time to take stock of your sales process. As mentioned in previous blogs, the entire retail business is changing. I recently attended a seminar put on by the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada and they presented some pretty interesting stats. The average Canadian now spends 14 hours online. The biggest growth area is in the 55 plus age bracket. Most people interviewed in the survey had purchased more than 5 times on line which is significant.

Most people felt confident purchasing online and felt that it was easier to purchase from a web site than go to the store. Last boxing day for example I received the boxing day flyer from Best Buy. I needed a printer for the office. The boxing day sale was on. I went to the web site, saw what I wanted and ordered it. I received it two days later. Pretty amazing stuff really.

More and more consumers will be purchasing online. Some retailers will need to have major stores to showcase new products and services however retailers have a lot of work to do to find out who their audience is and where they come from. For now its business as usual, however those companies that are going to be successful are the ones that can figure it out quickly and capitalize on the buyers experience.

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