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. 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.