Germans are selective in their online shopping

Germans don’t go for window shopping on the Web
The youngest know best what they want

E-shopping trend 2006  
A spontaneous spot of window shopping is out of the question for the majority of e-shoppers. Only three per cent look for buying inspiration when surfing the Net. Before buying on the Internet, online customers in Germany have already looked closely into exactly what is on offer. Seventy per cent only buy from an e-shop if they have already decided on a specific article or at least the features they want a product to have. These are the findings of the e-shopping trend 2006 survey conducted by novomind in collaboration with wiwo.de and handelsblatt.com. 
  
Shopping list "already written" before shoppers even log in  
Forty-two per cent of respondents only buy online when they know exactly which article they want to put in their shopping basket. Another 28 per cent will already have decided on specific product features but are still looking for the right manufacturer. Male customers take a more targeted approach than women, with 43 per cent having already written a precise shopping list before logging in. This is something only 35 per cent of women do. There are also some clear differences between age groups: while over half of the 14 to 20-year-olds have already decided what to buy before entering the e-shop, this is true of only a good third of 21 to 40-year-olds. 
  
Inspired buying only for a minority  
Shop operators can hardly rely on spontaneous custom. In fact, only an average nine per cent of customers regularly drop in at specific online shops and actually buy when something appeals to them. The percentage of female buyers here is a little over the average at 14 per cent. The same applies to the age group of 21 to 30-year-old cus-tomers. 
  
Spontaneous buying is something most people cannot understand  
Free inspiration is the preferred method of e-shopping for only a minority of three per cent. Unplanned surfing meets with total incomprehension in the 14 to 20-year-old group: none of the respondents liked the idea of spontaneous online shopping. 
  
Background information  
The latest novomind survey e-shopping trend 2006 was conducted in June 2006 in collaboration with wiwo.de and handelsblatt.com. The main focus of the survey was the question of where the current trends in e-shopping and virtual marketplaces lie. The online survey was completed and submitted by 506 end customers. 
  
novomind at German mail-order convention    
novomind AG will be taking part at this year’s Deutscher Versandhandelskongress & Mail Order World, the German mail-order convention being held on 25 and 26 October in Wiesbaden. The Hamburg software developer will be presenting practice-tested solutions for the mail-order industry at stand 170 in hall 1 of the Rhein-Main-Hallen events centre. The presentation will spotlight the entire portfolio of the two business units Products and Services. 
  
novomind: innovative software for professional customer communications  
novomind is a software developer in Hamburg and the fastest-growing company in the field of electronic customer communications and mail management. As the leading provider of innovative solutions for digital customer communications, novomind AG provides software for service-oriented and personalised customer dealings. The software not only optimises efficiency in customer administration significantly, it also gives the user a faster return on investment. The portfolio of the Products division includes the novomind Self Service SuiteTM. The software package contains all the communication modules necessary for a customer service centre on a central knowledge basis: e-mail management, virtual customer consulting and systems for interactive, real-time communication. The novomind AG Services division implements complex e-business applications. More than 40 major companies have already decided in favour of novomind technology, among them Citibank, Otto, Yello Strom and the German pension institution Deutsche Rentenversicherung. Club Bertelsmann, EnBW and Mexx as well as public-sector users, such as the German Bundestag (parliament) and the German Department of Trade and Industry, have already successfully introduced novomind systems to optimise their customer communications, turnover and PR.

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