Internet marketing firm Prospectiv’s 2007 Consumer Packaged Goods Survey claims that 70% of its poll respondents do research on such goods prior to heading to the supermarket. Prospectiv says 27% utilize e-Newsletters, 25% use general search tools, 14% look for general savings and shopping sites, and 14% head for brand-specific sites.
RBR/TVBR observation: The Prospectiv release didn’t mention how many people it surveyed, but 70% for items you might find in a grocery store seemed a little high to us, who spend enough time already brokering and negotiating the weekly menu between the household members (with the faithful dog invariably backing those entrees most likely to generate a significant scrap fallout). Once that’s done, we let recipes and habit dictate the rest.
With this skepticism in mind, we did an informal poll of our Washington office, and found that 33% regularly check grocery store sites for information on sale items and coupons, 33% does so "rarely" and 33% falls into the "never" category. It is our belief that the Internet is a frequently-used tool when researching high ticket or hobby/leisure items, but we find it hard to believe that 70% of Americans are spending large amounts of time researching their next grocery trip.
