Nielsen: Survey shows that electronic products account for 81% of the 10 products most easily affected by the Internet

Nielsen recently conducted a survey of 29,000 consumers in 58 countries. According to their survey, the Internet plays a key role in consumers' purchases of many products. When consumers buy products, the categories that are most influenced by the Internet are, from high to low: electronics, home appliances, books, music, clothing, cars, food and beverages, personal hygiene, personal health, and hair care.

81% of users are influenced by the Internet when buying electronic products, 77% for home appliances, 70% for books, and 69% for music products. This trend is also high in consumable products, such as food and beverages (62%), personal hygiene products (62%), personal health products such as over-the-counter drugs (61%), and hair care (60%). In addition, more than half of global respondents believe that the Internet plays an important role when they buy clothes (69%) or cars (68%).

The survey also found that consumers in Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa are the most likely to make shopping decisions online.

In the United States, respondents said that they are still influenced by the Internet in the purchase of many items, such as electronics (73%), home appliances (63%), cars (62%), music (59%), etc. Although some people think that the Internet is very important, others think that it is only more or less affected. In addition, 61% of Americans will check online before buying books, and 51% of Americans will go online to select food and beverages. However, we found that although the proportion of Americans' shopping influenced by the Internet is not low, compared with the global average, American consumers are still less affected by the Internet.

"Consumers are becoming more and more dependent on online shopping recommendations, and in turn, they are becoming less and less receptive to traditional forms of advertising," said Rob Wengel, senior vice president of Nielsen. "Social media can also be an effective channel for discovering potential needs and finding innovative opportunities. Given that consumers' reliance on social media in the field of fast-moving consumer goods continues to increase, if merchants can combine television advertising to strengthen audience memory, communicate more one-on-one with consumers, and listen to consumer needs, the effect will be very obvious."

Although the degree of influence varies, many Americans said that they decided to buy a product after learning about it on the Internet, such as searching for it (59%), seeing it on a forum (30%), visiting a brand's homepage and then deciding to buy it (45%), and being influenced by an article posted on a website they often visit (39%). There are also several other channels for learning about products, such as social media (30%), online advertising (29%), and online videos (27%).

via nielsen