Consumer Habits and Online Behavior - Latin America
Companies usually look into US Hispanics only as a big potential demographic for selling their goods, but out here in Latin America there are also plenty of brand-loyal online buyers, often overlooked.
This session had panelists from Argentina like Lucas Morea, CEO of Latin Edge and Javier Mary, Director of Online Products of Yell Argentina. I learned that media habits are changing, people are watching less TV and spending more time online, users are becoming buyers, newbies prefer broadband and if available they are skipping dial-up altogether. As in Latin America not everybody owns a computer, in Peru it is very common to go to a cyber-cafe or “a las cabinas” to get connected online. You could only find one computer in a block of houses….Even in las ‘favelas” in Brazil where they don’t have running water they have community internet. Sounds incredible right? This is how fast and accesible internet is becoming down there.
Once a Latin American consumer is hooked into email and chat it becomes a part of their lives, they talk about it, ...“hey did you receive my email?” (would be a common phrase this days). Moreover, it also affects them emotionally like Lucas Morea mentioned: “If they send an email in the morning the user expects to receive a reply by noon. He or she is constantly checking for the reply. If not he/she is thinking, oh this person doesn’t love me…” We Latin Americans are driven a lot by our hearts.
