Luxury Institute WealthSurvery: Search Engines Deliver Wealthy Consumers
Luxury Institute's New WealthSurvey Reveals That Search Engines Are Frequent Starting Points for Online Shopping Across Luxury Categories, Especially in Travel, Entertainment, and Real Estate
| Source: Luxury Institute
NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - January 14, 2010) - The objective and independent
New York City-based Luxury
Institute (www.LuxuryInstitute.com) today released its latest WealthSurvey, "Search Engine Usage & Shopping Habits of the Wealthy," a study
detailing how wealthy Americans browse, research and purchase luxury goods
and services.
More than three-fourths of wealthy consumers use search engines when
shopping for luxury goods and services. They perform an average of 14 daily
searches, and 89% report that they made an online purchase as a direct
result of a search. The top reasons for performing searches when shopping
are: finding the best price (78%), comparing different brands (77%),
finding a specific luxury provider's website (77%), finding out where to
purchase a product (75%) and reading customer reviews (72%).
Travel is the single most popular luxury category for searches. Nearly
two-thirds (64%) of wealthy consumers report searching for airline flights,
hotels, resorts, or cruises in the past three months. Entertainment related
searches are the second most popular with 51% of the wealthy going online
to find information about movies, theater and live music. Local business
listings (50%), electronics (47%), real estate (38%) and automotives (37%)
also are popular search categories.
Men are more avid users of search engines than women in most categories,
but women are twice as likely as men (48% vs. 24%) to have searched online
for fashion apparel information in the past three months, and nearly three
times as likely (46% vs. 16%) to use a search engine to find information
about beauty, skincare, and grooming products and services. Designer shoes
(24% vs. 15%) and designer handbags (24% vs. 12%) are two more categories
where women dominate in searches. Of note, men are more likely than women
(42% vs. 29%) to research and shop online for home appliances.
"Effective search engine optimization strategies are clearly becoming more
important to luxury marketers," says Milton Pedraza,
CEO of the Luxury Institute. "Wealthy individuals are smart consumers,
and this means that they will comparison shop, look for best prices, and
closely evaluate the merits of a brand's offerings."
In some categories, like designer handbags, 75% of searches are for the
manufacturer's name, but the real art of search engine optimization comes
when wealthy customers are searching by category, not by name, as is
frequently the case in health and fitness (61%), home furnishings (52%) and
financial services (42%).
The Luxury Institute surveyed a national sample of 427 wealthy American
consumers with average weighted household income of $290,000 and average
net worth of $2.9 million. Results of the online survey are weighted to
match the profiles of the wealthiest 10% of Americans from the latest
Survey of Consumer Finances from the Federal Reserve.
To purchase the complete Luxury Institute "Search Engine Usage & Shopping
Habits of the Wealthy," please visit the "WealthSurvey" section of the Luxury Institute's online store. Members
of LuxuryBoard.com have free
access to these reports via the Resource Center.
About the Luxury Institute (www.LuxuryInstitute.com)
The Luxury Institute is the uniquely independent and impartial ratings and
research institution that is the trusted and respected voice of the high
net-worth consumer. The Institute provides a portfolio of proprietary
publications, research and consulting services that guide and educate high
net-worth individuals and the companies that cater to them on leading edge
trends, high net-worth consumer rankings and ratings of luxury brands, and
best practices. The Luxury Institute also operates LuxuryBoard.com, the world's first
global, membership-based online community for luxury goods and services
executives, professionals and entrepreneurs.