My previous post looked at the purchase triggers in India’s television sector as an example of the insights brands can get from our Consumer Journey module of the Consumer Insights Engine. In this post, we’ll look at how the solution can give brands accurate, actionable information about how and where consumers research and evaluate their options when they are looking to purchase a new TV.

To maximize their performance in today’s competitive retail landscape, brands need a single, accurate view of the market with instant insight into consumer purchase behavior. In this post of this blog series, I’ll look at how the GfK Consumer Journey solution delivers that and enables brands to understand how consumers do their research when they buy a new product.

Touchpoints that drive the best ROI for your brand

Our Consumer Journey survey data reveals that the majority of television buyers in India do their research both in-store and online. While 45% did their research only through offline channels, a majority of the remaining 55% used both offline and online channels. Only 12% customers relied solely on online channels.

Overall, an average customer in India typically visited 1.7 physical stores while researching to purchase a TV, while those who conduct online research visited 2.8 retailer websites.

Perhaps that’s not so surprising but our numbers also show that in-store touchpoints still play a major role in the consumer’s purchase journey. More than half (52%) of TV purchasers in India visited a physical store to research their new TV prior to purchasing. Of those who researched their options in-store, a whopping 89% went on to make their purchase in-store. It is interesting to highlight that over three-quarter (76%) of those who researched various options online, also eventually made the final purchase in-store.

Even in a digital age, in-store advertising and displays play a major role in driving sales but as our Consumer Journey insights research shows, this does differ somewhat by brand.

This sort of insight is invaluable to marketing teams in optimizing their online and offline marketing and advertising channel and touchpoint investments throughout the consumer journey. They will know which channels and brand/product touchpoints consumers use during their search and evaluation of new products, helping them to make better decisions about campaign execution.

They can also see which consumers considered their brand but bought something else, and why they made that choice. We will look into why consumers in this market purchase products in my next blog post. These insights enable brands to plan ahead and improve conversion rates amongst lost shoppers. Product category managers and operations departments, meanwhile, can learn about where consumers are researching and buying product, so they can make better stocking decisions.

We will soon be introducing online passive behavioral data to the Consumer Journey module and this will give us visibility of device use, search terms, touchpoints, sites visited and more. Brands will be given an even more granular view of the consumer’s online behavior during the purchase cycle

One way in which GfK Consumer Insights Engine is unique is that it provides all of these insights in a single platform. This eliminates the need for multiple data and insights suppliers and provides a coherent view of your consumer’s purchase journey.

Get a demo of our Consumer Insights Engine online to understand how it can help you make smart, rapid decisions