Opinion Research Corporation International introduced e.Tr@ck, a nationally projectable syndicated research study of online shoppers designed to provide e-commerce companies with insight into consumer behavior.

"e.Tr@ck differs from other Internet studies," said Wayne Russum, research manager of ORC International, "by enabling e-commerce companies to project our survey results to a national population.

"This capability offers subscribers a complete demographic portrait of adult U.S. residents, including those who currently do and do not shop online."

The company said e.Tr@ck measures awareness and perceptions of online merchants, the products consumers shop for online and the attitudes of online shoppers.

Among the findings of the initial research:

• Amazon.com (80.8 on a scale of 100), Barnesandnoble.com (74.6) and eBay (70.0) were ranked the top three most powerful online brands, measured by E-Power, ORC International's proprietary index of awareness and customer satisfaction
• Airline tickets/reservations (35 percent of Internet users shopped for, 14 percent bought), books (34 percent shopped for, 19 percent bought) and music (30 percent shopped for, 14 percent bought) were the leading product categories for online shoppers.
• Seven of 10 Internet users (representing more than 65 million adults) shopped online within the past six months, while half reported making an online purchase.

The e.Tr@ck survey of about 2,000 adults is conducted by telephone twice a year. The overall results, weighted to the national population for age, race, region and gender, have a margin of error of +/-3 percent.

Opinion Research, founded in 1938, is a global marketing research and model-based teleservices company.