• by Aaron Baar , October 11, 2017

Appliance buyers like to do their research online, but it’s still the physical store that lures them in for the final purchase.

According to research from local digital marketing company Netsertive, 87% of appliance purchasers said they prefer to buy in local stores, rather than online. 

“Consumers are getting online, but they’re not buying online; they’re buying in stores,” Tim McLain, manager of segment marketing at Netsertive, tells Marketing Daily. “We live in a ‘click-to-brick’ economy, and you need to show up online so people are researching not just the products, but also where to buy them.”

Much of this online research starts locally, according to the survey. Forty-three percent of shoppers used local store websites to research which appliance they wanted to buy. While more than half of shoppers were unsure what brand they wanted to purchase, nearly two-thirds (63%) knew where they wanted to make the purchase, according to the survey.

All of these findings indicate brands and local retailers need to pay attention to their virtual storefronts, making sure pages and information are up-to-date and streamlining the process so consumers starting with brand research know where to purchase items, and those starting with stores know what brands are available, he says. 

“They need to treat the website with just as much care as they treat their [traditional] stores,” McLain says. “They no longer just have a [just a brick-and-mortar] storefront, they have a digital storefront.”