iCrossing announced the results of "How America Searches: Online Retail," the eighth in a series of studies commissioned by iCrossing. The report provides insights into the online shopping habits of U.S. adults as we head into the 2007 holiday season, and is an update to a similar iCrossing study conducted in 2005.

The study finds that online shopping has become more pervasive among Web- enabled consumers. It reveals that while search engines have retained their evergreen popularity as a research tool and prior experience with a company's products remains an influential factor in the purchase process, social media sites have grown in importance as places where consumers
gravitate to obtain information about the products and services they are interested in buying.

Online shopping continues to grow: 39% of online adults reported making a purchase online at least monthly, versus 30% in 2005. This is an increase of 30% over two years.

Social media increasingly relevant to online retailing: 42% of all consumers view information about brands and products on sites like Wikipedia to be extremely or very influential to their online purchase decisions. Blog posts, online videos and brand profiles on social networking sites carry significant weight with 18 to 44 year old shoppers.

Online reviews grow in importance: Use of customer product reviews and evaluations to research online purchases jumped from 40% in 2005 to 49% in 2007; and 70% of all online shoppers cite online reviews as extremely or very important factors in their decision-making process.

Search is pathway for shoppers: 65% of online shoppers conduct product research using search engines, and the percentage of those searching around actual purchasing - finding online and offline retailers - rose significantly between 2005 and 2007.

Major retailers still missing out on search synergy opportunities: Several large retailers, including Tiffany.com and Target.com, rank in paid search for the tested retail-specific keyword set, but miss out on additional opportunities to connect with interested customers by failing to achieve visibility in natural search.

With the rise in importance of social media and consumer-generated content in general and customer reviews in particular, brands and retailers face new challenges in not only managing their reputations, but also maintaining the attention of their customers. For example, online retailers that add a customer review module may help to drive engagement and site stickiness.

At the same time, emerging media offer growing opportunities to brands that are looking to connect with customers, especially the younger shoppers who find brand and product presence on social networking sites and video sharing sites. Similarly, with more shoppers turning to emerging online research tools like shopping comparison sites, online image search and blogs, the importance of optimizing sites for a range of content – from product feeds to news, images, videos, local search and blogs - is now paramount to achieving online visibility and grabbing wallet-share.