Web 2.0 forums as an alternative to Stiftung Warentest

75 per cent of Internet users regularly read other shoppers’ reviews
Web logs and forums call for a new approach to customers

Three-quarters of Internet users seek advice from other users

E-shoppers are increasingly putting their faith in user tips posted on the Internet
Around twelve million Germans now take advantage of Web 2.0 offers. Interactive user forums, like the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia and the video platform YouTube, are especially popular. Web 2.0 is also playing an increasingly important role in online trading. Three-quarters of online buyers regularly follow the recommendations of friends as well as the advice of Internet users they do not know personally. As a result, their experience more and more often represents a valuable alternative to the product verdicts pronounced by the German consumer watchdog magazine Stiftung Warentest. These are the findings of the trend survey "Vernetzte Kunden - Wie Web 2.0 das Online-Shopping verändert (Online consumers—how Web 2.0 is changing online shopping) conducted by novomind AG in collaboration with wiwo.de and handelsblatt.com.
 
A good image on the Web boosts sales opportunities
It is becoming more and more important for retailers to filter out the opinion leaders of the Internet community and to address them specifically. A favourable review from such opinion leaders can have a positive influence on online sales. After all, more than half of German Internet users are generally willing to buy a product about which they have read favourable comments on the Net. Conversely, more than one-quarter have decided not to buy on at least one occasion on the basis of other Internet users’ negative experiences.
 
Web 2.0 forums are more up to date than Stiftung Warentest
Seventy per cent of respondent Internet users prefer to read customer reviews in marketplaces like Amazon, for example. More than half will take a look around user forums before buying on the Net. The high use count of Web forums is an important advantage of Web 2.0, because it means that there is a wider range of reviews that are more up to date than to be found in Stiftung Warentest. Book and music reviews are usually only to be found on the Web. What’s more, online customer comments are usually freely accessible, i.e. cost nothing.
 
Customers will help design products
Forums and blogs are an immensely important source of information for companies as they enable the companies to tailor their products even more closely to their customers’ needs. Many companies are already investing in their own Web 2.0 ideas in order to learn from their customers. Countless online retailers and brand manufacturers, such as Adidas and Procter & Gamble, ask their customers to test products on a specially created platform. The information they gain about customer design and function preferences flow directly into product development. This is a tool hardly any e-commerce company will in future be able to do without.
 
Background information
The report on the trend survey "Vernetzte Kunden - Wie Web 2.0 das Online-Shopping verändert" (Online consumers - how Web 2.0 is changing online shopping) presents the findings of an online survey conducted for novomind AG in collaboration with wiwo.de and handelsblatt.com. The survey investigated where the latest trends lie with Web 2.0 applications and how customers use them. The survey was conducted during the period from 30 January to 28 February 2007. Altogether 374 end consumers took part.
 
novomind AG: 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 Bund. 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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