Online shopping yet to pick up in India: Survey

Online shopping is yet to pick up in India where television has the most perceived advertising persuasiveness across all age groups, according to a survey.

Companies in India might be rushing in to tap the e-shopping market, but a lot has to be done to encourage consumer and see more transactions, said the Deloitte’s State of the Media Democracy Survey – India 2012.

Purchasing products is the least online activity done by those surveyed with only 15 per cent saying they shop online, it said.

The survey shows that combining online and offline research before deciding what/ where to purchase is important for the majority of consumers. Interestingly, majority of consumers visited websites after watching ads in televisions, newspapers, magazines, or even billboards.

“And undoubtedly, television is still the reigning emperor and has the most perceived advertising persuasiveness across all age groups”, said the survey which employed an online methodology among 2006 consumers across all geographies and the age groups between 14 and 75.

Television remains the most common way to consume video, TV content and film, followed by the Internet. However, the proportion of consumers multitasking while watching television is substantial, with the most common activities being emailing, reading, and talking over phone.

Television (along with newspapers) is rated as the strongest medium for advertising, with two-thirds saying it’s among their top influences on their buying decisions.

The vast majority of consumers continue to read magazines, However, affinity for magazines is considerably lower than TV or newspapers, and they’re regarded as much less influential with regard to advertising.

A large majority of consumers, 72 per cent on an average, use search engines on a daily basis. This has been an amazing change compared with the 2009 survey where only 17 per cent used search engines.

Conversations about social networking sites and websites have gained tremendously compared with 2009 survey where the range was 3-4 per cent compared with 45-47 per cent now. Interestingly, newspapers (53 per cent) are the most talked about media topic among consumers, followed by music (47) and social networking sites (47) and television shows (46).