March 13, 1997 6:00 PM ET
Web window shopping gains momentum
By Michael Fitzgerald

LOS ANGELES--Window shopping on the Web is a whole lot more popular than it used to be. A new study of 6,600 North American Internet users showed that 39 percent made purchases based in part on information they garnered online. That's up from 19 percent in a study conducted in the fall of 1995. "It's really a startling quantity," said Randall Whiting, president and CEO of CommerceNet Inc., which co-sponsored the study with the Nielsen Media Research Co. Whiting said the numbers show that the volume of "electronic commerce ... is many times higher than the projections that market researchers are making." The survey also found that people are actively using the Web to help them make purchases, although only 15 percent of the respondents actually made their purchases online. "But is that E-commerce?'' asked David Coursey, president of coursey.com, a consultancy in Redwood City, Calif. "I think of E-commerce as how many dollars are moving across the Internet." What did the majority of respondents use the Web to get information about? Not surprisingly, computer hardware and software. Copyright(c) 1997 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company is prohibited. PC Week and the PC Week logo are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. PC Week Online and the PC Week Online logo are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Send mail to PC Week