Over Half of Americans Say Video Demos Influence Purchase Decisions
As the #1 retailer in video commerce and #3 in ecommerce and mobile commerce, Qurate Retail Group is taking what it does best – live video and storytelling – to meet consumers where they are in the new era of retail. The Qurate Retail Group brands have been leveraging live video to tell brand stories – producing 150 hours of live content a day, on average, and additional hours of recorded video.
Qurate Retail Group, in partnership with market research firm, YouGov surveyed 2,769 U.S. adults between October 15 and 17, 2018 to better understand how video, social media and storytelling influence purchasing decisions.
Video is the future of brand storytelling: According to the consumer survey, 55% of Americans say that video product demonstrations influence their purchasing decisions when discovering new products.
QVC and HSN have been leveraging the power of video since their founding in broadcast television. As the business models have evolved, the brands have expanded their leadership in video commerce across web and social platforms. An estimated 70% of QVC US products online have video included as part of the product detail. Across QVC’s and HSN’s US networks, approximately 350 hours of live video is simulcast per week on Facebook. This is in addition to dedicated video content created exclusively for the platform. The brands also simulcast live continuously on YouTube and have more than 550,000 additional videos for consumers on the platform. The videos are a combination of original YouTube content and content from the brands’ live television broadcasts.
Many Americans agree that product videos in general make them more likely to purchase the product – with YouTube (64%), TV commercials/informercials (49%) and Facebook videos (44%) leading the way as the top three video sources.
The top three product categories where people prefer to view a video before purchasing are: electronics (42%), kitchen & food (29%) and health & wellness (23%).
When it comes to e-commerce, consumers need to see it to believe it: Despite the convenience, shopping online can also be challenging for some consumers. Among all US adults, the top two challenges are:
- Not being able to physically try out and touch a product (61%)
- Insufficient product information such as size charts or measurements (39%)
To help address these challenges, more than two-thirds of online shoppers that face challenges turn to customer reviews (68%). That number rises to over seven in ten for those shoppers who are female and those shoppers between the age of 35 to 54 years old (71% each). Those customers who face challenges shopping online also turn to video demonstrations of the product (37%) and customer pictures on social media (33%). The QVC and HSN shopping communities demonstrate the rising value of customer reviews in ecommerce. QVC.com and HSN.com receive an average of more than 45,000 (QVC) and 20,000 (HSN) native reviews monthly. Customer reviews are integrated into the brands’ product presentations across platforms and used to inform modifications to product assortment and design.
Brand story and purpose influence purchasing decisions: More than half of Americans (53%) say that their purchasing decisions are influenced by a company’s history, founder’s inspiration, or mission statement and corporate social responsibility. That percentage rises slightly for consumers who are between 18 and 34 years old (55%).
All data, unless otherwise noted, are based on The Qurate Retail Group 2018 Shopper Survey, conducted online among a sample of 2,769 U.S. adults aged 18 and over. The survey was conducted October 15 – 17, 2018. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 2.1% for the overall sample.