Baynote: Survey shows 80.2% of U.S. respondents say social networks have no impact on their holiday shopping choices

On the afternoon of January 13, 2012, the latest survey released by Baynote, a provider of personalized online shopping recommendations, showed that 80.2% of American respondents said that other social networks such as Facebook did not affect their holiday shopping choices.

Baynote conducted a survey of 1,000 holiday shoppers in the United States, and the results showed that 80.2% of the respondents said that their personal connections on Facebook and other social networks did not affect their holiday shopping choices. In contrast, tablets have the greatest influence in the field of e-commerce. The survey showed that 48.6% of tablet users used the mobile device to shop, and email was the most useful recommendation method.

Amazon's mobile price comparison app Price Check allows users to use their mobile phones to scan product barcodes in physical stores and then find the lowest price on websites such as Amazon, which hurts the interests of local merchants. Baynote's survey results showed the opposite trend, with 93% of respondents comparing prices online and then buying in physical stores.

The survey shows that email is the best way to recommend products. 62.5% of respondents believe that email is the most effective way to receive recommendations. Another 16.7%, 11.8% and 4.9% of respondents believe that direct mail advertising, search engine results and group buying are the best recommendation methods respectively. Only 2.5% of respondents believe that Facebook is the most effective recommendation method, which shows that social networks still have a lot of room for improvement in innovative recommendation methods, such as Facebook Page tab applications, advertisements and Sponsored Stories advertising models.

Tablets were the most successful product during last year's Christmas shopping season, with half of tablet users using the mobile device to shop, which means that 8% of all consumers used tablets to shop.

Baynote provides personalized e-commerce services to Dell, AT&T, online ticketing site StubHub, etc., and recommends relevant products by comparing the browsing habits of website users with those of other shoppers through technology.