How to understand online consumer behaviour?
When creating a digital strategy, companies should take into account how their consumers behave online and what terms they use when doing online searches for their brand, product or service. This post looks at the online behaviour of Spanish users.
We will focus on several studies carried out and the report issued by the Consumer Barometer tool, where we have selected the key features of Spanish internet users. To put this data into context, we would highlight that the information in the Consumer Barometer is based on an internet user survey regarding recent purchasing choices in 10 different categories: clothes, make-up, cinema, food, mobile phones, televisions, household appliances, car insurance, hotels and airfares.
Internet Use in Spain
Spanish internet users are connected all the time, more so in recent years than ever before. This increase is most pronounced in online access via mobile devices, and the number of connected devices per person, which currently stands at 3.2.This figure leaves no doubt that we are now dealing with multi-screen users.
Source: Consumer Barometer: Volume of connected devices per user
Is the internet the first option for finding out about a product or service?
As is to be expected, the internet is one of the main channels for users (89%) to gather information before making a purchase. Moreover, as explained by Expertos Negocio Online in the article Consumer behaviour online, users often repeat their searches a total of 10 times before making their purchase. And it is entirely commonplace for users to compare prices during this process.
Consumer Barometer: Main source of information for users
For this reason, it is important that companies know the interests of their users regarding their services or what search terms they're using to find them and thus be able to make a selection of the most suitable keywords to secure better search engine rankings.
Why do users use the internet?
Online shopping via e-commerce and viewing videos on the different online platforms available, such as YouTube, are the main actions of Spanish users online.
It's obvious that the internet is changing the buying process for users and access to information in general. According to the study by Consumer Barometer, over 85% of users aged between 16 and 55 go online.
Source: Consumer Barometer: % of users going online
Because of this, companies need to take great care with their corporate image in the digital realm, i.e. anything to do with their brand, website, digital communications, etc., to ensure that it looks good and grabs and holds the user's attention.
Where are users searching from?
Generally, consumers search for information on a product or service they're interested in buying using their mobile devices (45%). The incidence of this type of search on computers is much lower (14%) because of the increase in smartphone usage in Spain, making it easier to browse and purchase from any place.
Source: Consumer Barometer: Smartphone vs computer usage
How important is advertising?
Advertising is becoming an effective way of branding, for introducing new products or services, or doing promotions, all depending on the stage each business is at.Investing in advertising and having an established target-based strategy is likely to have a positive result.
As stated in an article published by Puromarketing on advertising investment based on Zenith forecasts for 2018, the use of online advertising is set to increase - particularly for mobile devices (12.7%), followed by outdoor advertising (9.4%).For mainstream television advertising, the rate of growth forecast is lower (4.8%).
Is translation an obstacle to online shopping?
41% of consumers worldwide, according to data from Consumer Barometer, state that a poor translation or no translation is an obstacle when making an online purchase from a foreign country. In other words, translating contents is not a trivial process and content needs to be adapted to appeal to users and cater for foreign users in their own language.
Source: Consumer Barometer: Importance of translation for users
Now that you know a little more about Spanish online user behaviour, you should be asking yourself: Is your website responsive? Is it optimised in terms of usability to facilitate the purchasing process? And, most importantly, have you translated and localised your web content based on your target market?
