In its 4th annual holiday shopping survey, Baynote confirms the power of ratings and reviews, which research has shown most consumers trust as much as personal recommendations. The Baynote survey, conducted in early December by the e-tailing group, asked respondents (all of whom own a smartphone and had made a holiday purchase online) how often a list of channels influenced their purchases, both online and in-store. Online ratings and reviews influenced the most respondents: 48% said they frequently or always influenced their online purchases, and 37% said the same about their in-store purchases.
Email promotions were the next-most influential for online purchases (influencing 35% of respondents’ purchases frequently or always), followed by Google search results that include pictures of products (31%) and paper catalogs (28%).
For in-store purchases, paper catalogs (30%) were the second-most influential channel after reviews, followed by email promotions (27%) and Google search results (20%). Read the rest at MarketingCharts.
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