27% of Broadband Households Made Recent CE Purchase Online

According to recent research from Parks Associates, 27% of US broadband households bought their most recent consumer electronics product online. This boost could be credited to smart speaker sales with more than 60% of recent sales going through online retailers such as Amazon. Brick and mortar retailers still account for nearly 50% of recent CE purchases. Service provides such as AT&T and Comcast fall short at just 13% and direct purchases from manufacturers land at 11%. Despite the surge in online sales, overall CE purchases in 2018 are lower than expected.

Additional information includes:

• E-commerce represents about 10% of all US retail sales, putting CE sales above average.
• CE purchase declines have been linked to changes in the replacement cycle of products and the inability for consumers to plan their purchases in advance.
• The first quarter of 2018 shows that only 21% of US broadband households planned on buying a smartphone, showing a 7% drop from Q1 2017.
• Households with smart speakers own an average of four more CE devices than non-smart speaker homes.

For details about this research, click here.