1st In Video - Music World, Inc.

Current demographics show that broadband users are more likely to be more educated and wealthier.

Source: eMarketer

Burst Media recently found that the more complex the travel product, the more likely it will be researched online, but booked offline.   Customers were much more likely to book airfare and car rentals than hotels and travel destinations.  The travel industry still makes booking vacation packages too complex for the consumer.  When a customer is booking a complex  vacation involving airfare, hotels, transfers and/or cruises, it makes sense to book through a Travel Agent to make sure everything connects properly.  Help from live customer service agents was a major incentive to travelers who booked offline.

Read More: Online Travelers Bargain-Hunt on the Web - eMarketer

In a recent Yahoo!/ChannelForce study of television and digital camera sales, customers who searched online spend 10% more on in-store purchases than those that did not use an online search engine.
Read Full Story: Consumer Electronics Sales Start Online - eMarketer

• 153 million PayPal accounts (35% increase from 2006)
• Almost $1 billion turned per week.
• 1.2+ million transactions daily (more…)

With more than 200 million adults with access to the Internet, what do they do online? A KRC Research survey from Feb 2007 showed that paying bills and going to newspapers websites are the most frequent daily activities.

Approximately 75% of consumers surveyed said they use a credit card or debit card to buy something at least once a month (13% said almost every day). The study also showed that interactive activities are clearly the province of the young. This held true with buying online. Here’s the breakdown of the percent who use a credit card or debit card to buy something at least once a week: 18-24: 40%; 25-34: 39%; 35-49: 31%; 50-64: 24%; 65+: 23%.

Source: Top Daily Web Activites - KRC Research (pdf)

A Gartner  report from 2006 showed that estimated $2 Billion in e-commerce sales  was lost due to customer fears of online security risks.  Gartner’s also showed how E-Commerce was actually more secure than brick and mortar.  Unfortunately, to most customers, E-Commerce has the higher perceived risk.   This is because while most confidential data(i.e. credit card information) is stolen from a store’s system, the actual theft is committed online where the hacker can be a lot more anonymous.  When customers use a credit card, they are fully protected by the credit card companies from this type of misuse of their card.  It is up to the online merchant to screen their orders and watch for signs of fraudulent purchases.

Sources:

• E-Commerce More Secure than Brick and Mortars - eWeek
• Gartner: $2 Billion in E-Commerce Sales Lost Because of Security Fears - eWeek

Within 5 years, online news and information Web sites will become the number 1 source of news and information according to a recent study by Harris Interactive. Currently in the U.S., the top 5 sources of news are TV networks (25%), Online (18%), Cable (14%), Radio (12%) and Major Daily Newspapers (12%). News companies need to see this as a challenge on how to embrace the Internet and extend their brands online.

Read Press Release: Harris Interactive - TV Network News Top Source of News and Information Today

An Accenture study in Jan 2007, showed that 57% of U.S. Consumers preferred buying electronics online.

Source: Fathers Day and Online Retail - eMarketer

Neilson/NetRatings just released the April 2007 US search share rankings. Google lead with 3.8 million searchs, representing 55% of all search queries. Yaho had 1.5 million searches (22%) and MSN had .6 million searches (9%). If you take the other top ten search sites that are powered by Google (AOL, Comcast & Earthlink), Google provides 62% of searches on the Internet.  Also in the top 10 are Dogpile and My Way Search which also partially use Google results.

Read Press Release (PDF)

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, eBay’s unique visitors increased to 61 million in March 2007, up 10% from March 2006. The second most visited retail site with 42 million unique visitors was Amazon.com, #1 on the Internet Retailer Top 500. This is one of the reasons eBay does anywhere from 20-50% of all online sales. There are a lot of people (221 million registered users in 2006) looking for items on eBay.

Read Full Story: InternetRetailer.com - With 10% growth in visitors, eBay continues to lead shopping/travel sites