Non-Shoppers Unlikely to Buy Soon

While the majority of consumers who buy online will increase their spending in 1999, consumers who browse but do not buy are unlikely to make that first online purchase in the coming year, according to a study by Jupiter Communications.

Jupiter analyzed a sample of 3,000 households and conducted interviews with 2,500 individuals from an overall survey of 50,000 US households. The study divided consumers into three categories, 1) buyers, those who currently shop online; 2) browsers, those who use the Net to gather information on products and services but don’t purchase online; and 3) non-shoppers, those who neither browse for products nor make purchases online.

The study found that 73 percent of buyers expect to increase “significantly” their online spending in 1999. Meanwhile, 11 percent of “browsers” said they will buy online in the next year. Forty-five percent said they are unlikely to make an online purchase. Eighty-four percent of “non-shoppers” do not intend on buying anything in the next year.

These findings indicate that marketers will have to reinvent their efforts to expand the online market and to entice people to make that first purchase over the Internet.