Whether you’re a manufacturer of products, the owner of an online store, or an online shopper, you should be aware of some trends in online shopping.

First, based on a recent survey of over a 1000 moms they are very sharp shoppers that rely heavily on search engines to conduct research before making purchase decisions at BOTH online AND offline stores. This survey of mom shoppers found that 70% of them used search engines to find information before making an online purchase and 57% used them before buying at offline stores. In the last two years studies have shown an increase in online purchases of higher ticket items by moms indicating an increasing comfort level.

Second, shoppers are increasingly utilizing social navigation sites to read reviews on products and online stores before determining what to buy and where to purchase from. Sites like Buzzillions collects reviews from thousands of people who bought items and post their experiences online. The extra step Buzzillions takes to verify from the store owner that the purchase actually DID take place makes the resulting collection of reviews much more reliable.

For the online store owner these two trends help justify the heavy investments companies have been making to improve their search engine results page (SERPs) rankings through various search engine optimization (SEO)  tactics.

For the online shopper you’ve never had the ability to research a product like you do now. Use the tools and resources available to you before you make purchase decisions whether online or offline.

Those of you involved in manufacturing goods you’d better learn to rely on the realtime feedback from customers posted online in these review sites and blogs to determine how well you’re doing.

Shopping as we once knew it is disappearing and fast.