Excerpts from my latest article at NBC 5 Chicago’s Inc. Well blog: “How Search Impacts Holiday Shopping.”
Most businesses accept online shopping as a necessary part of their business models, and search as an important driver of brand recognition and shopping decisions. With the 2012 holiday season upon us, let’s take a quick look at how search impacts holiday shopping and what you can do today to capture more customers.
My favorite search stats of the season comes from Google’s Holiday Consumer Intentions 2012 Study: Forty-nine percent say that search will influence their holiday shopping decisions. For those shoppers who don’t know what to purchase, 37 percent of consumers say search is their go-to source for gift ideas. And 46 percent of consumers said they’d be shopping around for gifts and deals this holiday season due to the economy.
All in all, 80 percent of holiday shoppers will research products online before deciding what to buy. And they’ll be consulting social media, video and online reviews to help make those purchase decisions. Search has become an integral part of that shopping research process for online and offline shoppers alike….
Read the article in full at Inc. Well »
Originally posted on Web PieRat.