Research Online then Shop in Your Store - It's how it works these days

A couple snippets from Website Magazine worth noting (and understanding).

"The Department of Commerce estimated total e-commerce sales for 2005 at $86.3 billion, an increase of 24.6 percent over 2004. Total retail sales in 2005 increased 7.2 percent over 2004, with e-commerce sales accounting for 2.3 percent of total sales. "

That means that 97.7 percent of retail sales in 2005 happened in stores or catalog's.

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"Most people don’t buy right away; they like to shop and compare. The study found that over half of online holiday buying activity occurred in subsequent Internet sessions. This shows a strong trend known as latent buying and the importance of search marketing."

This really tells the story of how people use the web to do research online and then go to the store to buy.

If you think about the perishable products of our green industry, I would estimate that MOST of the green products are sold in store because the buyer wants to physically touch what they are buying.

They'll ask: "Does it have any flower buds on it? Any broken branches? What kind of container is it in? Is it a bio-degradable container? Is it rootbound? What kinda bugs does it get?"

We need to serve the web audience the information they are looking for so that they WILL come to the store.

Otherwise, we'll lose out to those descretionary dollars to another category.

For the full article from Website Magazine, click here.

Steve