People took a harder look at shopping in June 2008 and quite a few decided the savings would be worth the wait for delivery from an online business.

Although gas prices have begun a slow drop from the $4 per gallon range, some people may be in a habit of using less gas by doing more shopping on the Internet.

eMarketer cited Nielsen’s finding of an increase in the number of consumers who said they were shopping online more often due to higher fuel costs. Eleven percent of consumers surveyed said they were doing so, compared with 9 percent in June 2007; 9 percent said the same thing in June 2006.

“While retail store growth is in the middle-low single digits, e-commerce is still growing at least in the mid to high teens,” Jeffrey Grau, senior analyst at eMarketer, said in the report.

Gas prices barely merited a mention in reasons to shop online only three months ago, according to a Harris Interactive/iCongo survey. 33 percent of Internet users surveyed cited rising gas prices as a reason to shop through the Web.

On a side note, even though it’s July and back to school items have just started gaining prominent placement in stores, it’s time for online retailers to start thinking about their holiday season online marketing efforts.

Campaign tweaking and landing page testing should be on everyone’s list. Veterans and newcomers to online marketing may wish to make a space for SES San Jose in their calendars; the conference begins on August 18th.

Posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 11:17 am. Permalink