The appeal of instant messaging has helped boost sales from ecommerce sites according to new findings from Cyber Dialogue. The service, first introdued by AOL in 1997, is now used by 40% of all internet users and has been added to ecommerce sites to enable potential shopers to ‘chat’ to customer service rep or contact a friend about their purchases.
Jupiter Media metrix describes instant messaging as a ‘killer app’ for attracting web users to ecommerce sites and, according to Jupiter research, IM users spend around 15 hours a week online as opposed to non-IM users who go online for around 11.5 hours. Cyber Dialogue reports that 85% of IM users have recently made a purchase online which is higher than the average of 78% for other net users.
One US firm, Land’s End, claim that the addition of an IM service to their site has helped them to convert more than 10% of visitors into buyers, almost three times the average of 4.9%, according to researchers Nielsen/NetRatings.
| |
IM users |
% of Americans online |
Avg weekly online time |
| 1998 |
16.1 m |
30% |
10.6 hours |
| 1999 |
18.6m |
27% |
12.4 hours |
| 2000 |
33.7m |
40% |
15.0 hours |
Source: Cyber Dialogue
