| Reputation Trumps Lowest Price Online A
large-scale research study recently found that at least half of
online shoppers would willingly pay more to purchase from a vendor they knew.
The MIT study ran from early 2003 to early 2004 and monitored 10,000
searches by shoppers looking for books that were among the 100 most popular
titles. The searches took place on DealTime.com, an Internet comparison-shopping service
that lists several dozen retailer offers at a time. The listings include pricing and
shipping information, product ratings and more.
Fifty-one percent of the shoppers scrolled down from
the lowest priced books at the top of the list to the better-known retailers, paying several dollars more to buy their tomes from a vendor
they knew. The hardcover books monitored in the study cost an average of $42.
For example, the largest Internet retailer, Amazon.com Inc., had a share of sales four
times greater than expected, if the purchases had been based on price. People were
willing, on average, to pay $3 more to buy from Amazon.
The researchers expected nearly 100% of the shoppers to buy the lowest-priced book,
since "a book is a book" – there was no question of product quality
differences between vendors. Of course, it is true that 49% of shoppers bought the
lowest-price book. But it is interesting to note that this group of shoppers was already
"self-selected" as people who look for the lowest price – that’s why
they would use DealTime.com in the first place. So it is reasonable
to assume that, among the online shopping public at large, brand plays an even greater
role.
Source: "MIT Biz School:
Brands Beat Prices Online," TechWeb News, December 08, 2004
Interesting Alternative to Eye Tracking
Eye tracking is one way to test how consumers react to visuals such as web sites or
print ads. However, the method requires expensive equipment and bringing respondents to a
research lab. A company called MediaAnalyzer has come up with an interesting alternative
they call AttentionTracking: respondents look at visuals on their
computer screen and use their mouse to indicate where they’re looking.
That is, they quickly click on the spots that grab their attention.
Respondents work from their home or office, on their own computers – the test runs
in respondents’ own browsers. This enables conducting cost-effective research with a
large number of geographically dispersed respondents. The test
records the sequence in which respondents click (their "scan path") and then
overlays multiple respondents’ results, to provide a generalized view.
For more information about AttentionTracking, go to www.mediaanalyzer.com.
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Marketing & Research at (818) 752-7210 for market research that is customized for your
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