Consumers Still Research Online, Buy Offline

Writing by Brick Marketing on Wednesday, 9 of April , 2008 at 3:05 pm

(Source) Shopping sites are largely “generic” and undifferentiated. True e-tailers with a few exceptions are interchanable and thus vulnerable. And “e-commerce” for major retailers is increasingly about “buy (soon to be reserve) online, pick up in store.”

Once again, Greg Sterling hit it on the head. Comparison shopping sites really only do one thing well: Draw traffic from people who plan to make a purchase offline. That’s why major online retailers who want to close the sale will have to come up with creative solutions beyond these comparison shopping sites, which tend to be more and more for offline merchants who expect to drive traffic to their brick and mortar stores. That’s what online shopping is quickly becoming more and more.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that pay per click is not all about driving traffic to your website to close the sale there. The reason many products are priced lower online than they are offline is precisely to encourage people to make more online purchases. Unfortunately, they aren’t buying it. They’re doing their research online and driving to buy. Even with rising gas prices.

So what does that mean for online merchants and pay per click advertisers? It means you don’t necessarily have to pay for clicks and expect people to buy. You can pay for clicks and drive traffic to your brick and mortar store. If you don’t have a brick and mortar store then you’ll need to watch your pay per click bottom line a little more closely and keep an eye on your ROI. You can still turn a profit. It just means that may have to lower your click bids.

Category: Comparison Shopping Sites, PPC Opportunities

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