Senior Internet Users And E-commerce

Ever since the advent of e-commerce, there have been hundreds of studies to unearth the link between online and offline (brick-and-mortar shops) retail sales. Normally, the customers evaluate the shops and obtain product information from the Internet before proceeding to purchase the product from an offline store.

Nevertheless, there are others whose views are contradictory to what has been mentioned above. Latest information released by the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future, which has scrutinised the reverse trend, says that consumers, who are 50 years old or above, usually first look for products offline, compare and research the products in the brick-and-mortar stores, before buying them from online stores.

Substantiating their claim, researchers at the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future say that they have found that around 66 per cent of the consumers in the age group of 50 and 69 years had made online purchases only after researching the products in the local stores. This holds true even for consumers above the age of 70 years. The report says that at least 50 per cent of the consumers from this group too made online purchases only after researching the products in offline stores.

The study confirms that the older generation prefers to research the products at the local stores before making purchases online simply because they like to see things before buying them. And this holds true for all online purchasers.

According to Jeffrey Grau, a senior analyst at eMarketer, is of the opinion that the elderly Internet users comprise a lucrative online consumer chunk and hence the Web vendors can no longer overlook them. Jeffrey further states that these senior online consumers likely to be better employed than the younger lot of Internet users and have higher incomes too. As they are financially better off compared to the younger generation, these seniors have more buying capacity.

Projections made by e-commerce experts, the percentage of Internet users in the age group of 62 years and above will grow at a healthy annual average rate of 7.6 per cent between the period 2006 and 2011. This escalation speed is more than double the growth rate for the entire population in the US, which currently stands at 3.1 per cent.

Another study released by Pew Internet & American Life Project researchers in February 2008 revealed that compared to the younger consumers, the elderly clients were less charmed by the benefits of retail e-commerce. Therefore, it makes lots of sense when many of them use a multi-channel approach to get the best possible retail experience.

It is a fact that the Internet is fast growing to control all forms of retail business – online or offline. According to projections, sales influenced by the Web will comprise 28 per cent of the total retail sales in 2012. And this is a significant increase of 18.7 per cent from the present year.

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