Companies looking to increase their revenues from U.S. ecommerce should target individuals who are currently not buying on the Web. This is one of several key findings in a recent IDC report titled Online Nation: A Survey of U.S. Web Buyers and Nonbuyers. According to IDC, nonbuyers represent a much larger percent of the U.S. population than online buyers.
"The greatest segment of growth for ecommerce companies will be the current cadre of nonbuyers, which means a detailed understanding of this segment is necessary," said Jim Williamson, a senior analyst with IDC`s Consumer eCommerce research program. "This segment will likely behave quite differently from today`s current online buyers."
While understanding non-online buyers may be the way to future success, understanding current online users is also essential. "Insight into the buying behavior of current Web purchasers is critical to driving short-term revenue growth and to anticipating a new wave of future buyers," Williamson said.
According to IDC, Web performance and design are currently the largest obstacles to online purchases. Additionally, users who abandoned an online purchase midstream said the reason they did not complete the purchase was because their online session was interrupted. Optimizing site performance and decreasing the number of pages in the checkout process are critical to the success of an ecommerce site," Williamson said.
IDC had some good news for ecommerce vendors about people who are not current Internet users. "As current nonusers join the Web, they likely will become buyers more quickly than previous users due to the heightened awareness of the Internet as a sales channel," Williamson said.
IDC surveyed almost 3,000 Web users to ascertain the difference between online purchasers and nonpurchasers. Online Nation: A Survey of U.S. Web Buyers and Nonbuyers (IDC #W22117) documents the differences. The report compares the demographics of buyers and nonbuyers and studies usage patterns of Web buyers. It analyzes choices of merchant, the impact of trusted brand names in purchases, the types of products being purchased online, and payment methods. IDC also investigates reasons Web users aren`t making online purchases.
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International Data Corporation (IDC)
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