In Canada: Online Buyers Prefer Peer Reviews to Newspapers, Magazines
The except below is from our friends at MarketingVox – The Voice of Online Marketing. See original post.
Online buyers in Canada are taking full advantage of the Web, scouring customer reviews and community sites for help making educated purchasing decisions, according to a new study by JC Williams Group (via Globe and Mail).
Around 38 percent of Canadian online buyers comparison shop, an increase of four percent from last year. Shoppers also trust peer reviews more than any other source: 60 percent called reviews by other customers their most trust source, while newspapers or magazines garnered only 31 percent of shopper confidence.
The report, which was sponsored by Visa and Yahoo Canada, suggests brands prefer to conduct their advertising on community sites.
Right now the fastest growing media site in Canada is facebook, currently with 3M registered users.
Some top comparison sites in Canada include Shop To It, Price Canada and Price Grabber to name a few. For a complete list – please refer to Linda Bustos’s Post called – Canadian Comparison Shopping Roundup – this will give you the 411 on the comparison shopping in Canada. If you are still interested in learning more about Comparison Shopping in General – check out the Comparison Shopping Engine Strategies blog written by Scot Wingo the CEO of ChannelAdvisor.com.
My Thoughts?
More businesses in Canada need to get their product inventories online. I think there is a great opportunity for businesses to drive more sales using comparison engines (most of which will take your inventory for free) as another means of marketing. Even if you don’t sell the products online, having your inventory available online is critical. However, the main key is to do it right, meaning, don’t just slap up products you would like to carry or have access to it a catalogue – make sure that what you list is available in your store. If it is not available, remove it.
Would you ever tell a prospective customer over the phone that you had a product in stock, when you don’t? You would have one irate customer on your hands if they drove down to your store and realized that you lied to them on the phone. The same rule applies on the web – promote what you have and remove it when you don’t. If you are interested in a tool that allows you to get your inventory online – check our DriveIt.
Do you have other solutions that can help get inventory online for Canadian businesses? If so, please let them in the comments section – thanks.
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