Recently PRmoment hosted, in partnership with the guys from WE Communications our latest Ideas Kitchen.

WE Communications recently launched the 2016 version of its global research project Content Matters. The research of the UK strand of this research formed the basis of the conversation.

What are the main sources of information you use before making a purchase in the following sectors?

If you look at the big numbers on this chart, the biggest sources of information for consumers are search engines, word of mouth and company websites. Human behaviour is very complex; we all have many sources of reference, none of these sources of information will exist in a vacuum, but I guess the point is that most purchasing-decision research starts before the customer engages the sales person.

Sharing behaviour

What are your top 3 favourite social media networks for sharing content?

It's clear that from the slides that Facebook dominates the sharing economy. WhatsApp has come a long way in a short time and perhaps the demise of Twitter is currently being exaggerated.

The timing of consumer purchasing research

The research from WE Communication explained customer research patterns by the month, by the day and by the hour.

The month of purchase research seems to be all about January, which I found surprising as this is usually when people are most skint following Christmas, but perhaps it is tied in with the January sales.

Regarding the purchasing day, the big numbers are at the weekends. This will be of no surprise to anybody working in retail and I suspect there are some practical implications around communications team staffing to match this trend.

In terms of the time of day, it's interesting that there are as many people researching purchasing decisions from 9pm until midnight as there are from 2pm to 5pm. I suspect this is not mirrored in the communications efforts of most brands.

It’s important to bear in mind  that human behaviour is rarely the result of one communication interaction, but this research certainly gives an interesting insight into consumer purchasing research behaviour.