When it comes to buying a tablet computer online, Amazon is streets ahead of Apple, Samsung and other rivals, with 81% of shoppers hitting its site looking for tablets checking out its Kindle Fire product. It then goes on to covert 6.6% of them, compared to 3.4% for Apple. Only 30% of shoppers look at a Samsung.
Interestingly, the study by Kantar also finds that PC World’s website attracts the longest dwell time of consumers looking for tablets at a hefty 9+ minutes, however, it is poor at conversion. Argos on the other hand converts shoppers best of all, performing twice as well as Amazon.
Analysis of online consideration and purchase flows between the three key brands of Apple, Kindle Fire and Samsung shows that Samsung is losing significant numbers of net potential sales to both Apple and Kindle Fire. Samsung loses four times as many shoppers to the Kindle Fire as it gains and twice the number of sales to Ap-ple. The Amazon tablet retains most potential purchasers losing only 16% to other brands while Apple leaks just 22% of its contenders.
The research by Kantar into how 300,000 online UK shoppers look for tablet computers may seem a bit like re-search for researches sake, but it does highlight how dwell time and brand loyalty are not necessarily indicative of what will sell. Online tablet shoppers are looking to retailers rather than manufacturers for information about tablets with 73% visiting retailers’ websites, 31% going to tablet manufacturer websites, but just 12% using pro-fessional reviews and 9% going to mobile operators – social media plays little role online.
The report highlights the scale of the disruption that is occurring in the tablet market with retailers also offering (and driving consumers towards) their own products.
“This research highlights the need for both Samsung and Sony to look at developing more effective online retail strategies to combat Apple’s dominance of the premium tablet market, and the challenge they face from Amazon for mid-market devices which is leaving them squeezed in the middle,” says Sandy Livingstone, Client Service Director at Compete. “It also emphasizes the importance of conversion for retailers, some of whom are losing too many customers on the journey to checkout.”
