In a crowded marketplace, generating awareness among consumers can be difficult for retailers, especially those newer to the industry. The first way a consumer hears about a new retailer is through friends and family. Word-of-mouth recommendations are crucial in building initial trust and credibility. While more and more retailers adopt multi-channel presence to communicate with online consumers, there still exist many differences in the level of channel integration, and accordingly, in the efficiency to reduce online transaction-specific uncertainty and promote online loyalty.

Take a glance at the retail shopper’s sources of discovering a retailer that they didn’t make a purchase from before, 2019:

• Recommendation from family and friends is ranked as the main source of surveyed shoppers of discovering a new retailer that they didn’t make a purchase from before with a rate of 45%.
• Google search is ranked as the second source of discovering retailers by surveyed retailers shoppers with a rate of 16%.
• Print, mail or TV ads come at next as sources of discovering retailers by retail shoppers that they didn’t make a purchase from before with a rate of 14%.
• Recommendation from a product review site also listed as a source of discovering retailers with a rate of 8%.
• Digital marketing by the retailer is ranked also as a retailer discovery source by surveyed retailer shoppers with a rate of 6%.

A Graph Shows The How Retail Shoppers Discover a Retailer That They Didn’t Purchase From Before, 2019.