Yahoo study: Shoppers do online research first

A new study backs up what most of us thought -- most people do research online before buying computers or other electronics in a store. More than half of the 322 shoppers who were surveyed for the study said they had consulted the Internet before making their purchase, and half of them said they spent between one and three hours surfing the Web doing it.

For the poll, commissioned by Yahoo and the Chief Marketing Officer Council (CMO Council) in partnership with The ConsumerEdge Research Group, shoppers were queried outside BestBuy, CompUSA and Circuit City stores in Los Angeles, Detroit, Dallas and the San Francisco Bay area this spring.

The top five most influential information sources were: in-store salespeople (49 percent), in-store-demonstrations (36 percent), family and friends (33 percent), newspapers (25 percent) and the Internet (21 percent), the study found. Magazines, TV and radio were at the bottom of the list with less than 5 percent each.