Shop Interactively, Buy Locally

More than eight in 10 US online local searchers follow up with an offline store visit, phone call or purchase, according to a comScore Networks study commissioned by TMP Directional Marketing.

One-third of all consumers said they still considered print yellow pages as their primary source of local business information.

“Offline local search, white pages and yellow pages directory advertising is a $15 billion market and fairly static,” Stuart McKelvey, CEO of TMPDM, said in a statement. “Online local search is a $1 billion market and growing.”

Six in 10 local searchers went online first.

Of those who started their local searches online, 30% used general search engines such as Yahoo! or Google, 17% used Internet yellow pages and 13% used local search sites such as Citysearch.

source: eMarketer, August 15th

Only one-third of your customers are looking for you in the yellow pages. Isn’t it exciting to know they are looking for you online and then following up by visiting your business?
Well, it might not be that exciting if you can’t be found online!

Victoria Bush, www.youronthedot.com

Back to school shoppers head for web

According to eMarketer:
“Online shopping is joining the annual back-to-school bookstore scrum for many college students.

College students and families will spend $47.3 billion during the 2007 back-to-school season, according to the National Retail Federation’s “2007 Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey,” conducted by BIGresearch.

The average total spent on back-to-college goods will be $956.93, up from $880.52 in 2006.”

“While 57.2% of students and their families plan to shop at college bookstores, many also plan to shop at a variety of retailers, including discounters, department stores and office supply stores. Nearly one-third of consumers also planned to shop online for back-to-college necessities.”

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One third of 43 billion, can you do the math?

Victoria Bush, www.youronthedot.com