• by Aaron Baar , October 13, 2015

Although most consumers complete many of their electronics purchases in a store, online is where most of the shopping happens. 

According to research from e-commerce platform provider HookLogic, consumers who are planning to buy an electronics product visit an average of 3.3 Web sites during their research process (the average across all categories is 2.7 sites). In addition, two-thirds of consumers visit three or more sites when they are shopping, while only 7% visit a single site. 

According to the research, two-thirds (66%) of consumer electronics shoppers head online to research a specific product. But once online, nearly half (48%) compared multiple products on any given site. Meanwhile, 36% visit multiple Web sites to compare products. Nearly a quarter of shoppers put products in their shopping cart to wait for a later date.

“Consumer electronics is clearly a heavily researched category,” Elizabeth Jackson, chief marketing officer of HookLogic, tells Marketing Daily. “[Keeping products in a shopping cart] is a way for consumers to remind themselves that they really did like a product.”

Consumers also browse more often than they buy. More than half of consumers say they browse for products at least once a month, but they only actively shop for products once every two to three months

All of this suggests that electronics marketers and retailers should provide as much information as possible during this long lead time, offering simple comparison tools (not just for price, but for features) and providing as much product information as possible in one place, Jackson says. 

“They need to make sure their information is consistent against each channel,” she says. “They should be always on during all aspects of the holiday shopping period.”