Consumer Reviews Strongly Influence Tablet Buyers

Online reviews are the most influ­en­tial resource in con­sumer pur­chase jour­neys, and more peo­ple use mobile devices to inform their final pur­chase deci­sions.

Pat Hong By Pat Hong from Linkdex. Join the discussion » 0 comments

A sur­vey of con­sumer pur­chase jour­neys across mul­ti­ple devices by Chad­wick Mar­tin Bai­ley, has revealed that con­sumer reviews are by far the most influ­en­tial resource in con­sumer pur­chase jour­neys, and increas­ing­ly, con­sumers are look­ing to use mobile devices to inform their final pur­chase deci­sions.

Chad­wick Mar­tin Bai­ley, a mar­ket research and con­sult­ing firm, sur­veyed 2,000 con­sumers who had recent­ly pur­chased tablets, in order to find out what had influ­enced their pur­chas­ing deci­sions. Dur­ing the course of the pur­chase jour­ney:

  • 48 per­cent of con­sumers dis­cov­ered new brands and prod­ucts, most­ly while brows­ing con­tent online.
  • 29 per­cent of con­sumers dis­cov­ered new brands while search­ing the web.
  • 28 per­cent dis­cov­ered new brands via online adver­tise­ments.
  • 28 per­cent of con­sumers also dis­cov­ered new brands via TV adver­tise­ments.

The pri­ma­ry trig­ger for con­sumers to pur­chase a new tablet was due to tech­ni­cal issues with their own devices, with 51 per­cent of con­sumers pur­chas­ing a hand­held device after expe­ri­enc­ing cur­rent “tablet or PC issues.” Six­teen per­cent pur­chased a new tablet because of “lifestyle” changes. The major­i­ty of research dur­ing pur­chase jour­neys was con­duct­ed on mobile devices, with two-thirds per­cent of con­sumers using their smart­phones to seek out infor­ma­tion on prod­ucts, how­ev­er just 8 per­cent of users went on to com­plete pur­chas­es via mobile. Chris Neal, VP of the Tech­nol­o­gy and Tele­com Prac­tice at Chad­wick Mar­tin Bai­ley described how con­sumers were con­duct­ing their research:

We’re see­ing that smart­phones, in par­tic­u­lar, are indeed play­ing an increas­ing­ly impor­tant role in the con­sumer pur­chase jour­ney for tablets — includ­ing when peo­ple are inside a phys­i­cal retail store. Most of this activ­i­ty is still hap­pen­ing on the mobile web, rather than with­in any spe­cif­ic mobile appli­ca­tion, which has impli­ca­tions for media spend­ing opti­miza­tion, dig­i­tal cre­ative, and retail chan­nel man­age­ment.”

In a telling sta­tis­tic, approx­i­mate­ly a quar­ter of tablet pur­chasers used a mobile device while in-store to com­pare prices, check con­sumer reviews, text a friend for advice, or pay with a mobile wal­let. How­ev­er, the same pro­por­tion of users sought out the advice of a sales asso­ciate while in-store.

The Influence Of Consumer Reviews

By far the most influ­en­tial resource used dur­ing con­sumer research phas­es for tablet pur­chas­es are con­sumer reviews. Six­ty-two per­cent of respon­dents said that they were influ­enced by con­sumer reviews, with 19 per­cent stat­ing that they found con­sumer reviews to be the “most influ­en­tial resource” in aid­ing their deci­sion mak­ing. Con­sumer reviews were con­sid­ered even more valu­able than reviews from tech­nol­o­gy experts. cmb-product-reviews Social media, on the oth­er hand, was­nt con­sid­ered to be a use­ful resource by many con­sumers, with just 12 per­cent of respon­dents say­ing that they con­sult­ed social media por­tals dur­ing their pur­chase jour­neys. In-store, price becomes a defin­ing fac­tor for pur­chase deci­sions, with 43 per­cent of con­sumers mak­ing a final trans­ac­tion because the par­tic­u­lar store they were in offered the best val­ue for a prod­uct.

Optimizing The Consumer Purchase Journey: 4 Key Takeaways

The study sug­gest­ed four take­aways for brands look­ing to opti­mize con­sumer pur­chas­ing jour­neys:

  1. Opti­mize mobile expe­ri­ences for the con­sid­er­a­tion and eval­u­a­tion phas­es of con­sumer jour­neys: While two-thirds of tablet shop­pers use smart­phones to research prod­ucts, only 8 per­cent go on to trans­act via smart­phone devices. Brands should pri­or­i­tize mobile expe­ri­ences for these stages of con­sumer jour­neys.
  2. In-store mobile expe­ri­ences are also high influ­en­tial: While 25 per­cent of tablet pur­chas­es seek con­sul­ta­tion from a retail sales asso­ciate, just as many search for infor­ma­tion about pric­ing, avail­abil­i­ty, or dis­counts as part of their final deci­sion mak­ing.
  3. Con­sumer reviews are crit­i­cal: Reviews, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­sumer reviews, proved to be the most influ­en­tial resource dur­ing the con­sid­er­a­tion and eval­u­a­tion stages of pur­chase jour­neys. Ensur­ing your prod­uct comes across favor­ably on search phras­es and key ecom­merce web­sites is extreme­ly impor­tant.
  4. Learn to man­age organ­ic search and rep­u­ta­tion: Man­ag­ing the way both con­sumers and influ­encers are review­ing prod­ucts is a com­plex, but not unman­age­able task. The chal­lenge for brands will be to mobi­lize the resource, skills and tech­nol­o­gy need­ed to ensure sen­ti­ment with­in organ­ic search and con­sumer review por­tals comes across not only in a pos­i­tive way, but with a con­sis­tent­ly exem­plary lev­el of rec­om­men­da­tion.

When it comes down to it, con­sumers now expect noth­ing less for the prod­ucts they even­tu­al­ly resolve to buy. You can down­load the full study here. Entity Banner Momentology

Pat Hong

Written by Pat Hong

Editor at Linkdex/Inked, Linkdex

Pat covers the SEO industry, digital marketing trends, and anything and everything around Linkdex. He also authors Linkdex's data analysis and reports, analysing the state of search in various industries.

Inked is published by Linkdex, the SEO platform of choice for professional marketers.

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