e-Society Programme yields Insights into Online Life

Below are some of results from the Economic and Social Research’s e-Society Programme:

• Online consumers are attracted to well-known retailers and to stores supplying clear product information. Stores providing such qualitative product information receive 21% more leads than those that don't, and well known stores receive 32% more leads than 'unknown' online stores.

• Online shoppers are very price sensitive. A 1% price reduction generates 4% more customers, in comparison to 2% more customers in traditional retail markets.

• Parents considerably underestimate the risks their children are experiencing online. Among 9-19 year olds who go online at least once a week, 57% have come into contact with pornography online (compared with 16% of parents who say their children have seen porn online.

• 54% of 12-19 year olds who use the Internet at least once a week have visited civic or political websites, with most of them only visiting one such site. For young people to become more engaged, greater efforts are needed from the producers of civic sites - in design, in visibility, in communication relevance and in educational support.

• Much of the current NHS technology is inappropriately designed, implemented and supported for clinicians needs. As one consultant said 'It’s like being given a Rolls Royce and only knowing how to sound the horn.'

• Only 19% of pension provider websites attempt to compare their products with those offered by other companies and only 3% communicate any safety features.

• In 2004, only 30% of pension provider websites allowed for online sales.

• Around 90% of Liberal Democrat MPs have sites compared to 60% for other main parties. This may support the idea that minor parties make a greater effort to use the new media because of their limited coverage in the traditional media.

• The main function of most MPs' websites is top-down information dissemination. There are minimal opportunities for two-way communication or participation via most sites.

• People tend to distrust health advice offered online by pharmaceutical companies (on the basis that they are 'selling something') - even though health professionals generally rate pharmaceutical sites as trustworthy.

• No matter how good the health advice is on a particular website, people will ignore it if the site is badly designed and looks unappealing.

• The most used sections of online company annual report are the narrative sections with the top items regularly being the Chairman’s statement and the new Operating and Financial Review materials

• Access to online reports peaks in the first and second months after release but maintain high levels of access of more than 50% of these numbers of accesses all the way through the year.

• IT tools are available that can help to manage Intellectual Property in collaborative projects, but these tools are not used to their full potential.

• The lack of adequate Intellectual Property management policies partly explains the slow diffusion of IT tools to support collaborative projects.

For more information about the projects that yielded these findings, contact Hayley Baker on hbaker@london.edu or have a look at the website linked below.

Associated Link: The e-Society Programme

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