Internet shopping is playing an increasingly important role in preparing students to return to school, according to FeedbackResearch.com. The division of Claria Corp. found that 54% of consumers who made back-to-school purchases either purchased or planned to purchase apparel online while 62% bought or planned to buy their books online. About 25% bought or planned to buy supplies online.
The survey results were obtained by a combination of analyzing actual online traffic from May 1 to Aug. 25 at back-to-school focused retail sites as well as surveying consumers directly.
FeedbackResearch found the number of consumers who either bought or said they planned to buy apparel online was up 19% from last year while those buying or planning to buy books online was up 5% from last year. Supply purchases were up 2% from last year.
The researcher reports that Amazon.com is the top site for purchasing textbooks with 33% of respondents making purchases there followed by Bartleby.com with 14.5% and BarnesandNoble.com with 10.8%.
In the apparel category, OldNavy.com surpassed sister company Gap.com as the top online site for back-to-school purchases with 44% of respondents making purchases compared to 32% at JCPenney.com and 30% at Gap.com.
For school supplies, Staples.com was the leader with 22.2% of the total category traffic, followed closely by OfficeDepot.com with 22.1% and TigerDirect.com with 15.5%.
Another interesting finding, FeedbackResearch.com reports, is that 63% of those who made online purchases used search tools to research offerings before making a purchase.
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