More Online Shopping = More Online Giving

February 21, 2008      Admin

E-commerce merchants continue to train American consumers to buy online … and ultimately, to give.

That’s my conclusion from the latest Pew Internet Project report on online shopping.

  • Two-thirds of online users have purchased a product online, such as books, music or clothing.
  • And 81% have used the internet to do research about a product they were thinking of buying … in fact, 20% do this on a typical day.

Convenience, saving time, and finding hard-to-locate items are the principal drivers. And reluctance about giving credit card info via the internet continues to be the main drag.

Coincidentally, one of our readers just reported that a major catalog marketer he knows of has just crossed the point where more orders are coming online than via mail order. Any examples like that you know of?

As goes online purchasing, there goes online donating. Purchasing is the behavior that comes first.

Tom