According to a press release in e-consultancy.com, a DoubleClick report states that more than half of online buyers make purchases online on average 2 weeks or more after their initial product research. This revelation in buyer behavior bodes well for the patient marketer. It also bodes well for affiliate marketers whose cookies give credit for purchases made a month or more after the initial visit to an affiliate website.
While the assumption has been that most buyers search for brand names when making a purchase, the study shows otherwise. According to DoubleClick, “Buyers clearly favor generic terms early in the buying cycle – for example, ‘running shoes,’ as opposed to a merchant brand. Brand-specific searches accounted for only 18.1% to 28.5% of all searches those buyers conducted, depending on the respective purchase categories. Further, the study showed that a small minority of all the searches (4% or less for each category) were for “Brand + Item Searches”; that is, compound phrases that included a merchant’s brands plus another term.”
What this means is that buyers start their searches for generic terms early in the buying process and through research start to narrow their choices, many times deciding on a brand-name product in the end. Three quarters of the travel buyers will start their searches well before the 2 week mark and will narrow their choices over a longer time-frame.
The Internet has given searchers a way to do comparison shopping that is faster and more efficient that traditional brick and mortar methods. Because of this luxury, buyers can take their time in researching products before they actually buy, which gives more time for non-brand name product vendors to get in the game and make a persuasive pitch to the online buyers.
Let the buyer beware is not as big of a factor when the buyer can put their research, comparison and discernment skills behind each purchase they make. Let the merchant beware is more like it. The buyer is more savvy and more educated online than every before.
