More than half of parents read online product reviews before they buy

Dec 30, 2010 by Dirk Singer

Research from Harris in the US (via emarketer) – teens (13-18 year olds) and tweens (8-12 year olds) are not swayed by celebrity product endorsements with only 2% saying that they looked to see what celebs were doing before buying.

Instead, certainly among teens, online reviews and friends’ opinions are important with both cited by 40% as influencing their purchasing decisions. However price (67%) and actually being able to physically check out a product in-store (55%) still came top.

Things look a little different when you look at the kids’ parents. There, online product reviews ranked higher than going to the store in person (53% vs 46% for all parents). By comparison, 19% of parents said they paid attention to TV ads before buying consumer electronics, with 15% actually asking their kids’ opinions.

Note that though over half of parents consult online reviews, only 11% ask for opinions on social networking sites.

At the same time, newspaper and magazine articles are half as influential as online reviews (53% vs 26%), which partially explains why places such as the Apple apps store are often filled with app reviews that look suspiciously fake (a key give away being a series of glowing reviews posted on the same day).