According to a Nielsen survey commissioned by Yelp, four out of five Yelp users visit Yelp.com before spending money, and 93 percent say that visiting Yelp leads to a local purchase.
When asked why they use Yelp, 82 percent said they typically visit Yelp because they intend to buy a product or service.
Of the participants identified as Yelp users, 89 percent said they typically make a purchase within a week from the businesses they find on Yelp. The 93 percent who said Yelp leads to a local purchase included participants who responded always, frequently, or occasionally.
When asked to rank what factors help Yelp users choose a local business, 44 percent say the reviews are the most important information in the listing, followed by ratings (26 percent), number of reviews (17 percent), and reviews written by someone they know (14 percent).
The survey also found that restaurants were the most common businesses searched on Yelp, followed by beauty and spa, food, nightlife, home and local services, professional services, shopping and pets. Other businesses commonly searched on Yelp included hotels and travel, auto, arts and entertainment, health and medical, real estate and financial services.
When asked which site Internet users are most likely to go to first if not Yelp, 84 percent said they search Google, followed by Yahoo and Facebook.
Conducted earlier this year using a Nielsen online panel, the “Yelp Consumer Survey” included a total of 1,415 respondents split into two groups, an ‘Online Rep Sample’ and a ‘Yelp Sample.’ The ‘Online Rep Sample’ consisted of 1,006 participants representing Internet users that searched online for local business information, while the ‘Yelp Sample’ was made up of 409 panelists that were previously identified as having visited Yelp, as well as indicated during the survey that they had used Yelp.
Yelp notes that their analysis included responses from the ‘Yelp Sample’ group along with 106 panelists from the ‘Online Rep Sample’ that indicated they had visited Yelp.
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