Approximately 40% of all purchases are influenced by digital media, with mobile the biggest driver of the trend, according to eBay UK’s head of retail Angus McCarey.
“From our research, roughly 40% of what we buy today is influenced by the internet,” he said, adding that this statistic includes researching items online and then buying them in-store.Speaking at this afternoon’s Guardian Mobile Business Summit, McCarey quoted eBay research, which suggested that two fifths of big-ticket purchase decisions somehow involved digital channels.
“Soon that will be 100%, we can’t say when that’ll be, but that’s where it’s going,” he said. “Collectively, we have to make it happen.”
McCarey also added that mobile was a bigger driver of online purchases than social commerce.
“In the next three years there will be more change in how people buy things than there has been in the past 20, and mobile is the most important driver,” he said. “Social media is an important side of this, but social shopping is in an early stage and we see it as about three years behind mobile.”
