Digitally, what are people buying online?
According the Pew Research Center, 65% of US Internet users have bought ‘digital’ products or services online. That’s a significant number, because it not only shows that people are buying online, but they are buying pure information without having a physical tangible thing to show for it. People online are buying either subscription based services or download-able files.
And in particular, 10% of people have downloaded an e-book and 11% have purchased premium content from a site already offering free content. I think that’s an important concept to consider. Because if that number if accurate, then that’s a lot of people willing to pay for pure information.
But people are also buying digital music, software, ringtones, porn, entertainment, apps, video games, and digital photos among other things. To me that shows that a positive consumer confidence in a willingness to spend money online.
It would seem like at every level, there is an opportunity to provide valuable content that people want to buy. From self-published e-books to membership sites, to larger companies developing software and video games, the consumers are there and so should be new product creation as such.
