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New ECommerce Study Confirms Search Engines Are Most Influential Medium For Clothing Purchases

Pew Internet and JupiterResearch Released a New Internet Maketing Report and Both Firms Confirm Online and Off-Line Consumer Purchases are Both Being Impacted by Search Engine Exposure.

Ecommerce Site Owners Urged to Outsource For Organic Search Engine Optimization

Keyword Search Now Influences Offline Purchasing.

According to the study, 86% of consumers that purchased clothing offline reported that the search engines directly influenced their retail clothing store visit and offline clothing purchases.

Some of these offline clothing consumers also reported that they often purchase clothing online and spend nearly 40% more annually on clothing than apparel consumers that do not visit search engines.

Over the two month holiday gift shopping season last year, clothing gift keyword searchers spent nearly 40% more time in the store during their retail store visit than non-search visitors and "internots", and keyword searchers are likely to engage in several website activities once online such as requesting a catalog, locating a store coupon, analyzing sizes, colors, and product details, or submitting their email address and contact information in seeking a free or discounted gift coupon or other special cost-saving offers.

The Keyword search group were also more likely to make a purchase during a retail store visit than the "internots" that participated in the clothes shopping study.

Clothing customers that use Keyword Search converted with an offline clothing purchase more than 30% of the time.

A fascinating finding in the study confirms what our Peak Positions clients have been reporting for years that the keyword search customers use several multiple searches as the search results ofr one word searches are many times not related ot the searchers need even still clothing consumers use search engines at least twice daily throughout their buying cycle.

Many of the keyword searchers stated that they were uing search to locate a specific product, brand, new clothing style, 60% say they used the website to find a physical store address or a phone number to double check on the return status prior to purchase.

JupiterResearch went on to add that clothing stores, labels, products, and brands should outsource for organic search engine optimizaton as keyword searchers prefer the organic search reults 8 to 1 over the Pay Per Click sponsored search boxes.

Keyword searchers are not visiting their bookmarks, instead they are so comfortable with search engines, that they continue to dial up the search engines directly and search every time they think about clothing vs. entering sites from bookmarked links. (most of the study participants forgot that that they had previously book-marked the site.

This study further confirms the importance of being found early and often on the search engines, especially on your product name, brand name, company name, at all times.


The study further validates that any wbesite owner or webmaster should be addressing organic search engine optimization, the most effective form of online advertising.