Google and Compete have just released their combined study into the impact digital is having on shopping trends. As you would expect we are not surprised to see that video is leading the way in how shoppers are making these purchasing decisions.
Some of the highlights of the study

• 40% of shoppers visit an online store or go in person as a direct result of watching an online video.
• 1 in 3 shoppers use YouTube to shop of clothing.

The ever-popular Millennials (the generation born in the late 70’s to mid 90’s) are leading the way in using video to influence their purchasing decisions. 38% of them are two times more likely to rely on video to decide which company to purchase from.
28% of people who used video for research spent more than $500 on clothing and apparel in the past 6 months, compared to 2% of people who didn’t use video in the purchase research phase.
Something that did surprise us all in the office is the over 55’s are influenced by video more than the 35-55 age group.

So what types of videos are engaging people to purchase?

As expected the clear winner was customer testimonials and reviews with 36% of the group being influenced by them, I wasn’t surprised what came in the lowest either. Only 16% of people purchased from an overlay ad. It’s also worth noting that videos in emails returned 29%.

So why did Customer Testimonials and reviews come out on top?

We’ve worked with many of leading fashion and beauty Vlogger’s and they are a really smart bunch. They understand their audience and know how to connect with them. The size of the audience’s also reflect how well they are doing. MacBarbie07  is close to 800,000 subscribers, Beautycrush has just topped 400,000 and we are talking 100’s of millions views.

[pdf http://bespokebanter.com/assets/pdf/2012_Google_Compete_Apparel_Shopper_Study_Mobile_Video.pdf]

Download the research