Commentary
Just An Online Minute... Books 'n' Dates
- by March 15, 2006
According to a survey conducted by BizRate Research for comparison shopping site Shopzilla, bricks-and-mortar bookstores are becoming good venues for meeting blind dates. After restaurants, bookstores are the second most popular locations to meet blind dates for both women and men (61 percent versus 52 percent).
Yet when it comes to buying books, 78 percent of respondents say they are regular shoppers at online bookstores like Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and big discount retailers like Target.com and Wal-Mart.com.
However, the survey also finds that the most popular venues for reading aren't bookstores or restaurants, but home (chosen by 93 percent of respondents), on vacation (43 percent), and on a plane (32 percent).
The Shopzilla survey finds that the most popular reason to read is to escape, according to 88 percent of survey participants, while 51 percent of the respondents are motivated to read for self-improvement, and nearly one-third (31 percent) say they read to gain general intelligence. But only 3 percent say they read to make themselves look intelligent--a happy distinction, showing that more people are motivated to read for actual smarts versus the appearance of intelligence.
"You can find out a lot about a guy in a bookstore," Rebecca Opp, a production manager from Los Angeles, Calif., told BizRate. "I especially look for single men in the cookbook, business, and pet sections of Barnes & Noble."
That said, women are more likely to join book clubs to make friends and meet new dating partners than men (30 percent of women versus 23 percent of men), while, surprisingly, men are more likely to read for self-improvement purposes than women (56 percent versus 49 percent).
The study, conducted by BizRate Research, a division of Shopzilla Inc., was based on a point-of-sale survey with a sample of 840 online buyers from Feb. 8-9.
