The Kelsey Group and ConStat, Inc. have found that 70 percent of U.S. households use the internet to shop for local products and services, a 16 percent increase since October 2003. ConStat, Inc. is a research firm focused on the Yellow Pages and information technology industries.
Analysts at The Kelsey Group say that the internet is now on par with newspapers as a local shopping information resource and will likely surpass the impact of print media in the near future.
"Use of the internet as a shopping resource is already changing the face of local advertising. Traditional local advertising media must find ways to evolve or risk losing dollars to the new advertising options available to local and small businesses," says Neal Polachek, senior vice president, The Kelsey Group.
Analysts at ConStat, The Kelsey Group's partner in this report, attribute the rise of search and broadband to the local shopping growth.
"Most of the internet's growth for shopping research can be attributed to large search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves, the usage of which increased significantly, from 47 percent in 2003 to 55 percent in 2005. Further, the research shows that the increase in usage of the major search engines has been powered by broadband users exclusively," says Tim Trickett, vice president of business development, ConStat.
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