Remember the late 1990s, when the Internet boom was in full swing? Everyone was predicting we’d soon be shopping for everything from dog food to cars in our pajamas, and we’d never leave the house.
They were partially right. We still leave the house to go shopping, just perhaps not as frequently as we used to.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans go online to research products and services they are considering purchasing, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. That’s up from 49 percent in 2004.
Jim Jansen, a senior fellow with the Pew Research Center, said the data show more people are going online first to do things like compare prices or read reviews, even if they end up making the purchase in a brick-and-mortar store.
The survey also found that 24 percent of Americans had posted reviews or comments of products and services online.
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