January 15th, 2024, Lesley Simeon
When out shopping for consumer electronics, people may glance through price tags, look at how sustainable the product is, inquire about customer service and even check if the product is compatible with new tech like AI. But does word-of-mouth play any role in consumers’ electronics purchase journey?
YouGov data reveals that consumer electronics are among the top categories of products shoppers are most likely to use online reviews for when making purchase decisions. More than two in five consumers across markets (42%) say they use online reviews and ratings provided by other consumers when buying electronics. Electronics rank third in our list of products and services, after hotels (44%) and restaurants and bars (42%).
According to demographic data, men are more likely than women to refer to online reviews and ratings when purchasing consumer electronics- more than two in five men (44%) do so compared to 39% of women.
Let’s now see how the data stands across individual markets.
Indonesians are the most likely to look up online reviews for consumer electronics; Germans are the least likely to do the same
More than half of all consumers in Indonesia (52%), Hong Kong (51%) and India (51%) say they regularly use online reviews and ratings provided by other consumers to help make purchase decisions for consumer electronics. Sweden (48%), Italy (45%) and Poland (45%) are some of the other markets we survey where consumers are most likely to do the same.
Two in five Britons (40%) and over a third of Americans (35%) also claim to use online reviews when buying consumer electronics.
On the other hand, Germans are the least likely (31%) to follow suit - the lowest proportion of consumers across all markets. As for Asia, Singaporeans are the least likely to refer to online reviews for consumers electronics. Nonetheless, an impressive 43% of Singaporeans do so. Equal proportions of consumers in the UAE (39%) and Australia (39%) are likely to look up reviews for electronics.
Explore our living data - for free
Discover more tech content here
Want to run your own research? Run a survey now
Make smarter business decisions with better intelligence. Understand exactly what your audience is thinking by leveraging our panel of 20 million+ members. Speak with us today.
Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 17 markets with sample sizes varying between 501 and 2004 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in October 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.