Most online shoppers visit aggregator sites first: Shopzilla survey

Appearing on comparison shopping sites is becoming more important to e-marketing strategies, as 59% of online shoppers start at aggregator sites rather than going directly to a merchant's site and taking the first price offered, according to a new survey conducted by BizRate Research for Shopzilla.

That represents a 13-percentage-point shift towards aggregator sites in less than three years, when only 46% of online shoppers started at aggregator sites and 54% went straight to the merchant's site, the survey found.

BizRate said the shift probably was due to the fact that 87% of online shoppers are now comparing the offerings of online retailers against catalog merchants and retail stores to find the best deals and items that are in stock. 71% of online shoppers report they were able to find better sales and discount offers online than offline via a retail or catalog merchant.

Of the online shoppers surveyed, 70% said they compare prices every time or most of the time. 37% said they let a comparison shopping site do the deal-hunting, while 64% went from site to site looking for the best value, according to the survey.

Internet shoppers visit an average of four online retailers before choosing which one to buy from, with 94% actively comparing prices. They visit the site of their choice an average of 2.61 more times before proceeding to checkout.

43% of those surveyed said they won't buy from a favorite retailer if the item can be purchased at a lower cost elsewhere. However, 34% of online shoppers say they will buy the same brand most of the time, while 62% said they will buy the same brand some of the time, and 1% reported buying the same brand always.

The Online Shopper Deal Shopping and Value Panel Study, conducted by BizRate, a Shopzilla Inc. subsidiary, is based on a sample of 923 online shoppers from Feb. 22-28. The respondents, selected from a panel of 790,000 online shoppers, were 44% male and 56% female adults.

Screenshot of the compilation of DealofDay's top hundred Merchants dishing out the best value of money with a variety of deals to choose from.