Making Money Online
About Shoppers and Shopping
If you are an Internet Marketer, or anyone relatively new to the affiliate market place, the probability of making money online will be greater if you have some knowledge of the most frequent internet shoppers globally, and the items they usually buy. It's also important to know the items that are sold the most online in general, the regions or countries that tend to purchase more of certain items, and the factors that most influence those consumers' purchasing decisions.
According to a survey conducted by The Nielsen research company in 2007, 85% of the world's population has made a purchase online --- an increase of 40% up from two years ago. These shoppers use the internet to shop at least once per month. The South Koreans were found to be the most devoted online shoppers, about 99% of them were found to have used the internet to shop, while consumers from countries such as Germany, UK, and Japan all finished close for the second spot. Finishing in the number eight position were the U.S. consumers.
The Egyptians and the Filipinos were found to be the world's slowest adopter when it comes to online shopping. Survey found that only 23% of all Egyptians have ever made a purchase using the internet. The Filipinos didn't do much better, in fact, 45% of these consumers have never used the internet to make a purchase online, at the time this research was conducted. The Filipinos, Pakistanis, Argentinians, and The Egyptians respectively, were all discovered to be the world's most infrequent shoppers.
The South Koreans, who are considered somewhat style-savvy,were found to be the most devoted internet shoppers, followed by The Chinese, Portuguese, and The French. Based on findings, almost 3/4 of all Koreans who shopped online, purchased clothing, accessories or shoes within the last three month, at the time this survey was conducted.
Books were found to be the most popular items purchased online. Electronics, tickets, clothes, and accessories were the next most popular items. Other categories of goods that were found to have experienced significant growth were cosmetics, nutritional supplements and groceries.
People from the developing countries such as The Chinese, Brazilians, Vietnamese,and The Egyptians, were all found to be the biggest buyers of books online. Findings revealed that 75% of all global shoppers have bought airline tickets online in the past three months. Travel arrangement is believed to be extremely suited for the internet because it allows individuals to easily gain access to an extraordinary wide array of comparable information.
Over 50% of online shoppers have verbalized that most of the time they go to the same site to make a purchase. One interesting discovery made was that, although a great deal of online shoppers usually rely on the use of the search engines, or simply just surfing around online to find the best online stores, still a larger percentage of people relied on personal recommendations from other online shoppers or acquaintances. However, according to The Nielsen company, the factors that seems to most influence online shoppers to make a purchase from a particular online store, are trust and word of mouth.
Conclusion
Based on the overall findings above, when it comes to online shopping in general, it appears that while people from certain geographical regions of the world are more inclined to do most of their purchasing online, shoppers from other countries are more reluctant to use the internet to shop. Apart from the fact that many people do not shop online frequently possibly because they simply don't have credit/debit cards or the resources, etc., a large percentage of people who can afford to shop online frequently are a bit hesitant, usually because of the lack of trust they have for either some online stores, the product, or the internet in general.
As a result, they often rely a lot on recommendations from others who have already made a purchase from a particular store or from those who have already used a particular product to help them in their purchasing decisions. It also appears as if books, electronic products, clothing,accessories,nutritional supplements, airline tickets/reservations are the products people usually mostly shop for online, in general. However, some countries are more inclined to purchase more of certain items online than others.
I certainly have no doubts that online marketers, likewise new affiliate marketers, stand a much better chance of making money online if they target these most frequent shoppers and market these goods that tend to sell the most online. However, winning the trust of these frequent shoppers at an early stage of the game and proving to them that these products are authentic or worthwhile buying through honest and convincing recommendations are also very important.
