Consumer Barometer is an excellent aggregate audience research tool made available by Google. It allows us to look at general behavior patterns around the globe across a number of industries.
The brief video below will provide an overview of what kind of data they make available to us.
After watching the video, post the answer to the following three questions:
1. Which country has a higher percentage of individuals who purchase movie (cinema) tickets online, the United States or Israel? What are their respective percentages?
2. Who is more likely to purchase movie/cinema tickets online, American men or Israeli women?
3. Play around with the possibilities regarding the behavior of online users and answer this:
What is an interesting finding that you discovered?
Per usual, post your responses as comments here.
The link to the Consumer Barometer is after the clip.
Consumer Barometer
The bottom line is that Consumer Barometer is an excellent resource available for free that allows audience researchers an insight into the behavior of aggregate online users. Definitely worth considering in your own areas, if you don't already do so.
Jack
This is a fun exercise! Consumer Barometer does seem like a very interesting and useful tool. To answer the questions…
ReplyDelete1. Israel (53%) has a higher percent of individuals who buy movie tickets online compared to the US (9%).
2. From the data provided, it seems like Israeli women seem more likely to buy online movie tickets compared to American men. (51% Israeli women bought them online while 11% American men bought them online)
3. An initial observation I made looking at the data is that, online shopping is not as big in the US as I thought! Some other interesting things to note were:
• In Sweden, ticket counters must be fairly empty since 77% people buy event tickets online!
• More than half the books purchased in the United Kingdom are bought online.
• Only 13% of retail products sold were sold online. This was rather surprising because most people I know seem to shop only on Amazon or ebay.
• Not too many people seem to be using mobile phones to do research. In fact mobile phone research was used the most when buying a mobile phone!
Overall it seems like online shopping has a long way to go before it reaches its full potential. Also I am a little surprised that India is not on the list because even fresh produce in my cousins’ homes in India is bought online!
Hi Kalyani, all your findings are really interesting. When I saw that the UK sells more than half their books online, I had to check and see what percentage the U.S. sells online (only 21%). I guess we're not as reliant on Amazon as I thought. : )
DeleteHi Susan... isn't it interesting to see that the whole world is not living online after all :)
DeleteGreat points to both of you -- i think there's an issue of saturation. Keeping it all in perspective the numbers of people who purchase online in comparison to the length of time we've been able to purchase online vs in store still is pretty impressive. I am so interested to dig into the data and look at year-over-year numbers; was there a point in the growth of online purchasing where we saw a major dip? Or is our love of online shopping growing consistently over time?
DeleteExcellent comments.
DeleteSammy-- to answer your question, online shopping has grown each year. No dips yet. I think we're still a long way from that happening.
In Israel, 53% purchase their movie tickets online, compared to just 9% in the USA. Israeli Women are certainly more likely than American men to purchase their movie tickets online, 40% more likely in fact - 51% to 11%.
ReplyDeleteUsing the Consumer Barometer site, I was interested to find that of the countries listed, Egypt is the only one whose internet access is significantly under 50% - at 26%. The vast majority of the countries are well over 50% in terms of internet access, and given that, I found it surprising that the Czech Republic is the only country to do more than 50% of its consumer purchasing online.
I also looked into how many consumers use their mobile devices to do research while in a store, particularly focusing on the difference between those over and under 40. Among the over 40 group, consumers in Saudi Arabia were by far the most likely to use their mobile device to do research at 59%. I was also very surprised to learn that only 63% of the under 40 consumers in Saudi Arabia exhibit the same behavior. The difference was far more stark in the USA, where 53% of those under 40 use their mobile devices for in-store research, but just 18% over 40.
I wonder if there is more resistance among the older population to embrace technology in countries that have had great success in other fields, compared with countries like China, India, Saudi Arabia, UAE, where it appears that the over forty crowd is not far behind the young populations of these respective countries.
Interesting observations Scott! I am rather surprised at your finding about the over 40 group. I mean i have always felt that the older generation in the countries mentioned are more resistant to change and introduction of new technology compared to the US. WhenIi discuss all the new, fun stuff you can do with your mobile phones now, my mom and my aunts in India listen to it with a lot of enthusiasm but seem rather wary about trying it out. They just feel they don't need it! But then i guess over 40 can be a very large segment. 40-45 year olds have had a lot more exposure to technology than older groups. So maybe that skews the data?
DeleteHi Scott - since you referenced Egypt having a lower % of internet users I thought it was appropriate to add that the country actually has a history of internet censorship relating to the Arab spring. In fact there have been periods in Egypt where the government has "shut down the internet" to avoid news and video from protests being broadcast to the rest of the world. A bit unrelated to the statistical side of the discussion but this likely contributes to the lower usage in the country.
DeleteCertainly would be a factor - thanks, Erin.
DeleteOne of the interesting side effects of the digital media revolution is that those countries that offered a superior infrastructure prior to the advent of wireless technologies do not have the same high rates of penetration as those countries that didn't. The reason is because the countries with the infrastructure still have options. Without the infrastructure, your options are limited. For example, here in the U.S., we have lots and lots and lots of brick-and-mortar stores, so we can always go shopping. The Czech Republic, however, does not as many options. Therefore it makes sense that they'd buy more online. Here in our own country, rural American teens are more likely to make purchases online than teens in big cities are, presumably because the teens in the cities can walk outside and buy a pair of Sperry's, but the kids in the middle of Nebraska (not picking on it, just recognizing that it's a mostly rural state) don't have such an option.
DeleteHeck, it still amazes me (AMAZES ME!!!) that 60% of Americans still have landline telephones. That's more than 150 million people who are relying on landlines. In countries without such a major telco infrastructure prior to the advent of cell phones, the only choice is wireless.
Israel wins over the USA (Israel 53% online, USA only 9%), with Israeli women and American men leading purchases respectively.
ReplyDeleteI assumed women would be purchasing more retail products online, across the range of options in the USA, but on average (I did a bunch of different graphs), the numbers were largely even across gender with men almost always coming out a few points ahead. I do have to wonder how they are tracking gender and whether programs that default to male (or is neutral considered 'male'?) causing a bias.
Hey Sarah, I got the impression that if you didn't filter the data, the tool pulled equally from male and female, Below 40 or 40+, High or Low Education and High or Low Internet usage.
DeleteThe Consumer Barometer is very interesting. I can see plenty of uses for this in my current role. So in answer to your questions: (1) Israel purchases more tickets online than the U.S. (53% versus 9%). (2) Israeli women are more likely to purchase movie tickets online than American men (51% versus 11%). (3) What I find most interesting is that Israelis are buying their tickets online but the predominant way they are researching whether they want to see these movies is by word of mouth. So they are progressive enough to purchase tickets over the Internet but yet insular in that they aren’t relying on the World Wide Web for their recommendations and instead soliciting opinions from trusted resources. I’m also a bit surprised that so few Israelis and Americans used their cell phones to research. I also would have thought that there would have been a correlation between those that did research on their cell phones to buying tickets from that same device but there was no indication of that. (Why isn’t that a part of the Consumer Barometer’s criteria?) Lastly I’m surprised that Israelis, both men and women, who were undereducated still bought 48% of their tickets online. I would have thought the number would have dramatically decreased. With Americans, it didn’t seem to matter – we, for whatever reason, don’t seem to want to buy our tickets online, educated or undereducated (12% to 7%).
ReplyDeleteSusan - I'm curious about your reaction to the educated/undereducated numbers. Did you think the undereducated would be less likely to buy online because they would have a lack of understanding/comfort with technology? Or is it because you thought they would not have the same access to buy online?
DeleteIt seems to me that especially among younger audiences, technology is becoming a lowest common denominator across those with access.
Susan, I had the same observation as you regarding the still small percentage of consumers doing product research via mobile prior to purchasing. This seemed to be true across most industries and countries that I browsed. When I consider the products that I typically research online before purchasing, they tend to be more expensive items: cars, electronics, etc. When I research these types of items I still prefer the desktop experience that allows me to open multiple browser tabs to compare products side-by-side, save links to a bookmark folder for products I like, and quickly copy and paste information into a digital notepad. I know it's possible to do these things via mobile, but it's still more fluid on a desktop. If doing research was easier via mobile perhaps it would be more widely adopted. This is obviously just an observation from my personal experience.
DeleteHey Scott, good call -- you're absolutely right about technology becoming the lowest common denominator among young people and people in general. Technology has never been more affordable or user friendly and I definitely didn't factor that in.
ReplyDeleteLike many of my colleagues have already indicated, Israeli consumers purchase more of their tickets online than the US (53% vs 9%) and Israeli women are more likely to purchase tickets online than American men (51% vs 11%). I think this tool provides a really interesting look at behavior by market and I'm sure it's useful to those who do business internationally. To point out the obvious, because this data is presented in percentages and Israel has a much smaller population than the United States (a quick search reveals that there are 8MM people living in Israel vs 316MM in the United States) it's important to note that this data doesn't reveal that more tickets are actually being sold online - moviegoers in Israel are just more inclined to use technology to buy them. Given the dynamic tech scene in Israel it actually makes a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to see what other countries had high percentages of their movie tickets bought online and found that they are all Scandinavian. In Denmark 64% of moviegoers buy their tickets online, in Norway its 59% and in Sweden, only slightly less than Israel with 52%. These countries are all around the same size as Israel (between 5-9MM people) and also have highly educated populations and flourishing tech scenes. Fun stuff!
Strangely enough I'd love to draw a connection between mental/ emotional state in these different territories as well as their interest in 'escapism' towards media outlets like movie theaters. Check out this map, it charts depression by territory. Might be fun to explore the idea of emotional connection to purchase. What do people buy when? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/11/07/a-stunning-map-of-depression-rates-around-the-world/
DeleteAh! I'm intrigued. Provided that one has resources, I would hypothesize that we buy more when we are depressed...
DeleteIt does looks like 53% of Israeli moviegoers purchase their tickets online versus 9% of US moviegoers. And Israeli women are more likely to purchase online over American men at a rate of 51% to 11%.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a neat tool, I look forward to using it somehow; in work or play. I was interested to learn that here in the US we aren't as reliant upon the web for our purchasing as I presumed. For example, just based on personal anecdotes I always thought I was one of the few people who still did most of her shopping in a good ole fashion brick and mortar. But 15% of women in the US versus 23% of women in Great Britain are purchasing clothing and accessories online. And only 21% of men buy their items online. As I was walking home today, the Fresh Foods delivery man was responsibly pushing boxes of groceries down the street (in the rain) and so I wondered how popular online grocery shopping was...it isn't! 99% of people are still going to the grocery story. Maybe I should have filtered for age, but that was really surprising. How do they stay in business, especially with competition new to the NYC market? Even books are still largely being purchased offline. While 43% of men buying their books online is a large number, I presumed incorrectly that with The Nook, Kindle and amazon most people weren't still going to bookstores. Granted it is enough of damage to result in scores of closings across the country.
I looked up patterns in Russia, primarily because during the Olympics much was made of their hacking problem and insecure wifi. Only 7% bought gifts or flowers online and 2% bought clothing. I wonder if it is because data security is a problem or shipping costs are prohibitive?
In the end, I was surprised by the reality of the numbers; that offline shopping across products, gender and countries is still preferred.
As an aside, a close friend of mine co-owns/operates an online grocery stores that delivers in Minnesota (gophergrocery.com). When he started the company, he was convinced that EVERYONE would want to buy online and have their groceries delivered. Human nature, however, suggests that we enjoy shopping for groceries. I don't think grocery stores are going anywhere...
Delete
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, let me just say what a great presentation of data this is. Easy to navigate, attractive and informative. This is an awesome resource—thanks for sharing!
Here are the answers to the questions.
1. Which country has a higher percentage of individuals who purchase movie (cinema) tickets online, the United States or Israel? What are their respective percentages?
Israel, at 53% over the US at 9% - which I found surprisingly low for the U.S. considering how long this functionality has been available in the U.S. and how easy it is to use.
2. Who is more likely to purchase movie/cinema tickets online, American men or Israeli women?
11% of American men purchase their movie tickets online, 51% of Israeli women do.
3. What is an interesting finding that you discovered?
I’m in Greece at the moment and I wanted to compare the online behaviors of the American and Greek consumers—especially because my 6 years of experience in this country was characterized at immense frustration of not being able to do the same basic things online that I could back in the states. Greek e-commerce sites are notoriously clunky and shipping is unpredictable at best and, as a result, I assumed that the vast majority of Greek research and transactions were conducted offline. And as someone who always did everything online back in the U.S., I assumed that the American numbers would be far higher.
What I found is that my impressions of U.S. behavior were wildly off the mark. Americans really don’t purchase a great deal of their products online. In fact, in many categories, Greece was far higher in terms of the percentage of online transactions. The percentage of Greeks purchasing DIY tools online is twice as high, for example. Same with beauty products. Greeks were three times more likely to purchase movie tickets online as well (something, anecdotally, I never did in Greece but always did back in the U.S.).
While the Americans were far more likely to conduct research online in almost every category, what I found most interesting is how the Americans were also the first in admitting that they conducted 'no research'. That seems suspicious to me, and I wonder if there is a reporting error in there somewhere because it seems difficult for me to believe that so many shoppers in the U.S.—which has always pioneered the consumer review—are going into transactions cold. Did anyone else find this odd?
Tim, I had the same observation you did. See my post below for more details. Although I spend more time researching expensive purchases like cars and electronics, I still find myself doing at least a little bit of research for pretty much anything I buy over $80. It's officially fall in Chicago, meaning that for the first time in 6 years I need to buy a proper winter coat and boots. I'm willing to invest in these items to ensure I'm getting good quality and I honestly spent about 3 hours researching boots before I finally chose a pair. I guess the data proves that I'm way more obsessive than the average consumer, especially in the US. This was a really shocking stat to me.
DeleteTim, I suspect that it's not a reporting error but rather the notion that everyone in our world researches online, but we are probably not representative of most Americans. In my world, for example, almost everyone I know has an advanced degree (PhD, MD, MBA, JD) and we all frequent Amazon.com, read e-books, research boots, etc. But then I'll go visit my sister and her family in Southeast Ohio (rural) and am amazed at the difference in how people behave. My sister and her husband have four adult children and now three grandchildren. The year is 2014 and they don't have Internet at home. I can't even imagine such a world. When I ask my brother-in-law about it, he says "people have managed for thousands and thousands of years without it; we're fine." They still have a landline, they just purchased cell phones (but not smart phones), but they mostly leave them off and only take them out if they remember them. Meanwhile, they buy lots and lots of stuff and they make their decisions based largely on what they see in the store. That's it. I'm only mentioning this because they might be more representative of the country than we are. The trend, however, is clearly in the direction of more and more research online.
DeleteRelated to that thought, my wife and I are currently shopping for a car. We've spent countless hours online looking at reviews by every conceivable evaluator (Edmunds, KBB, Consumer Reports, U.S. News & World Reports, etc.) to come up with a 'top 5' list. Then we went to different dealers to physically inspect the cars, sit in them, take them for test drives, etc. At each stop thus far, I inform the rep that we've already done a great deal of research, know how much to pay, etc., and the response we get is "you'd be surprised at the number of people who just come in here and make their decision in the showroom."
I just can't wrap my head around this kind of behavior, but it's everywhere (just not in the hubs of highly educated working professionals).
Thanks for the fabulous rec Jack -- I love this fool and can certainly see myself incorporating some of this data (and even presentation style of it) into my frequent presentations at Paramount.
ReplyDelete1. Which country has a higher percentage of individuals who purchase movie (cinema) tickets online, the United States or Israel? What are their respective percentages?
I found Israel's results of cinema tickets online to be at 53%, the US a mere 9% ( which like many of my fellows I found a huge surprise) The male average of US purchasers was a bit higher with 11% but still pales in comparison to the 53% of Israeli customers. This really does make it clear from the video that it's so very important to see where the cash will actually be spent. Movie tickets are such a great example; most of us likely use the internet to tell us what's playing but do we commit to the purchase at that moment? Likely not. Our trends are so rich that while much much more than 9% of our population will buy a ticket, they will almost all do it in person as opposed to on the web.
2. Who is more likely to purchase movie/cinema tickets online, American men or Israeli women?
Israeli women are far far more likely to buy tickets online vs. US men, in fact more than 4x more likely. US men at 11 % with Israeli women at 53%.
3. What is an interesting finding that you discovered?
I wanted to take a look at book purchases, as we are all familiar the bookstore along with other print media have been characteristically on the decline for years. I compared the US to our neighbor Canada to see if there was a major difference. In fact there was!
For the US -
We are a close split with 43% purchases made online with the remaining 57% offline.
For Canada --
There was a MAJOR difference with only 23% of its population purchasing online and the remaining 77% purchased in person, offline
Comparing the two --
Interestingly enough our data around research was actually pretty close:
-- 30% of US consumers did only research only a close comparator to the 26% of canadians who did online research only
--10% of US consumers did both online and offline research where nearly double 19% of canadians did both online and offline research
--42% of US consumers did not research at all while only 31% of canadians did no research at all
Conclusion --
In comparison to the US canadians spend more time, energy, and thought around their choices and purchases of literature.
Ha! I'm not even the least bit surprised that Canadians spend more time making their literature choices! The book industry relies on a small portion of the country to read lots and lots of books (rather than a large swath to read a few)... Glad you enjoy the resource...
DeleteIsrael has a higher percentage of individuals who purchase movie tickets online than the US. 53% of movie tickets are purchased online in Israel compared to 9% in the US.
ReplyDeleteIsraeli women are more likely to purchase movie tickets online. 51% of Israeli women purchase movie tickets online compared to 11% of males in the US.
One surprising learning is that consumers in 35 of the 39 countries listed do more online research before making a purchase than consumers in the United States. Only consumers of UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt do less pre-purchase research than Americans. Americans rank especially low when it comes to the amount that do online research prior to purchasing a car. Only 58% Americans will do online pre-purchase automobile research compared to over 72% in most other countries. I can't believe that 42% of Americans buy a car without doing any research online beforehand. I arm myself with as much information about safety, features, prices, promotions and warrantees as possible before I walk into a dealership so I know I'm not getting ripped off.
I'm with you, Christina. It is SHOCKING that people don't research a car before buying it (see my above comments).
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