E-buying intent remains strong, Greenfield says

A quarterly survey of online shoppers by Greenfield Online Inc. reveals that intention to shop in the future remains strong. In January and then again in May, 57% of shoppers said they plan to shop a lot more or somewhat more online in the future.

But an indication that the web is maturing as a shopping channel comes from the October numbers in response to the same question. Then, 68% of respondents said they intended to shop a lot or somewhat more in the future. The drop from October to January came in the percentage of consumers who said they will shop a lot in the future, says Joan Barten Kline, senior director of client development and services. “October was some kind of a peak,” Barten Kline says. “Like anything else, this is a retail cycle. People adopt, then it levels off. It could be that people who had just started shopping online were represented in that October group and that by now they’re intending to shop somewhat more but not necessarily a lot more.”

Greenfield Online conducts its Digital Consumer Shopping Index of 3000 online shoppers’ intentions quarterly.