63% durables sales to be digitally influenced by 2023: BCG-Google

The findings are based on a survey of 6800 consumer durables buyers and discussions conducted by Kantar IMRB for the BCG-Google Digital Influence on Consumer Durables Study 2019.

Capturing the growth of digital influence and key consumer insights in the consumer durables sector in India, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Google India released a report - 'Digital Powers Consumer Durables: A $23 Billion Opportunity by 2023'.

According to the report, today, 28 per cent of durable consumer sales are digitally influenced and this is estimated to reach 63 per cent of total sales amounting to $23 billion by 2023. Of this, $10 billion will be online sales.

The report also states that digital influence varies by product categories. It's 33 per cent for high-average selling price (ASP) durables like ACs, televisions, refrigerators, and washing machines and 20 per cent for lower ASP products like small appliances, water purifiers and microwaves.

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Capturing the rise in the number of digitally influenced urban consumers, the report points out that digital is increasingly playing an important role in consumers' decisions to buy a product and the number of digitally influenced consumers have doubled over the last four years. Digitally influenced consumers have increased 5x in tier II and tier III cities and digitally influenced women consumers have increased 10x over the last four years.

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The report also highlights important consumer insights as buyers traverse through multiple online and offline touchpoints before making the final purchase. In the pre-purchase phase, approximately 80 per cent of digitally influenced consumers are undecided about their choice of brand when they start their research and spend typically two to three weeks on research before making the final purchase. Search, social media, blogs, and online videos are key sources of online research. The report suggests that nearly two out of three digitally influenced consumers rate online reviews as a significant influencer in their purchase decisions.

Click here for full report.