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23 percent Indians surveyed said that they had never shopped online. Globally 16 percent of consumers have never shopped online and the percentage is even lesser in Asia Pacific with only 13 percent of consumers indicating that they had never shopped online.

“Low internet penetration and lack of confidence in using credit card credentials, are the biggest challenges for online shopping in India, though high adoption for online travel sites is changing this. The medium to heavy users have always been quite comfortable buying stuff online,” said Karthik Nagarajan, Director, Online Division, The Nielsen Company.

Shopping through a virtual space calls for trustworthy recommendations to back the products and services for Indians, who trust no one more than family and friends when shopping online. According to the Nielsen report, 71 percent Indians trust recommendations from family when making an online purchase decision, followed by recommendations from friends at 64 percent and online product reviews at 29 percent.

“Indians still like a first hand experience for high involvement products and services that they buy. The traditional one to one experience with the sales person, who clarifies all their doubts, is preferred by many. Since the online medium doesn’t allow them this interaction, the closest is recommendation from their family and friends, though this is being largely replaced by expert reviews online,” continued Nagarajan.

Online reviews and opinions are most important for Indians when buying Consumer Electronics (57%), Software (50%), and a Car (47%). The Nielsen report highlights the importance of online opinions as part of the decision making process in purchasing products and services. Many Indian consumers went so far as to say they would not buy products or services without considering online reviews, and again this was particularly important in the purchase of Consumer Electronics (41%), Car (38%), and Software (35%).

With online reviews and opinions weighing so heavily in consumer’s decision making processes, it is interesting to note that more than four in ten Indians are more likely to share (post a review/ Tweet/ review) a negative product or service experience online than they were to share a positive experience. At the country level, this tendency was highest amongst consumers in China (62%), Vietnam (46%), Singapore and India (both 44%).

Half the Indian consumers (50%) use social media sites to help them make online purchase decisions. This percentage is higher for the Asia Pacific region at 60 percent who use social media sites to help them make purchase decisions (compared to 43 % globally).

What’s in the online shopping kitty?

In the next six months Indians are most likely to buy Books (41%), Airline ticket/reservations (40%), and Electronic equipment like TV, Camera, etc. (36%) online. Other products and services that Indians incline to buy in the next six months include Tours/Hotel Reservations (29%), Event tickets (26%), Clothing/Accessories/Shoes (25%), Computer Hardware (24%), Videos/DVDs/Games (not downloaded) (22%), and Music (not downloaded) & Computer Software (not downloaded) (both 21%).

When shopping online, one third of Indians (33%) purchase most frequently from websites which allow them to select products from many different stores. Nearly three in ten (28%) prefer online-only retail sites. Nine percent Indians purchase from websites that also have traditional ‘brick and mortar’ stores and eight percent buy from sites that also sell their products through catalogs and also over the phone.

“There is a bit of a silent social media revolution going on in India at the moment and it is largely mistaken for just social networking. The truth is that discussion boards, forums and review sites are seeing high growth in terms of conversations and this is where many shopping decisions are being made,” said Nagarajan.