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The Internet Knows Best

New Survey Shows That Consumers Reply on The Internet for Major LIfe Purchases

WALNUT CREEK, CA (June 17, 2004) – U.S. consumers increasingly view the Internet as one of the most trusted sources for making major purchase decisions and accepting referrals, according to a new Harris Interactive® survey commissioned by Reply! (www.reply.com), the leading consumer service portal. In fact, respondents to the new “Trusted Sources” survey identified only spouses as a more important source of referral and advice for large purchase decisions, such as homes, cars and major appliances. The Internet is now a more popular source of referral than parents, close friends, knowledgeable professionals, news articles, and religious figures, according to the national survey of 2,245 online adults.

Another interesting finding from the survey showed that respondents would be more comfortable buying a used car on the Internet than buying it from well-known past and present public figures, such as: Senator John Kerry; day-time Emmy Award winner Ellen DeGeneres; and George Washington. Few respondents said they would buy a used car from real estate mogul Donald Trump or convicted insider-trader Martha Stewart, who bottomed out the list. Only Oprah Winfrey, George W. Bush, Jay Leno and Tom Hanks received more “trust” votes than the Internet for buying a used car.

“Other than their spouses, people seek advice from the Internet before any other source,” Reply! CEO Payam Zamani said. “People don’t just turn to the web for small purchases like CDs and books anymore. They trust the web as an essential referral source for making major purchases such as homes, cars, and loans.”

Finding a more trusted source of referrals for major purchase decisions has become increasingly important to consumers. Sixty-three percent of Reply!’s survey respondents said that finding a more trusted source of referral was important to them, which outweighed, almost three-to-one, the number of consumers who did not feel that this was important.

Sixty-three percent of survey respondents also said that they find the Internet to be an important, very important or extremely important source of information or referral for their purchase decisions. Only five percent found the Internet not to be an important source of information. The vast majority (86 percent) of the “Trusted Sources” survey respondents said that they tend to return to Internet sites that had provided good referrals and experiences in the past.

“This survey underscores what we experience on a daily basis at Reply.com,” said Zamani. “People now routinely turn to the Internet to make the most important of purchase decisions. Consumers have used Reply! as a referral source to more than 12,000 trusted professionals in: real estate; automobiles; financing; home improvement; and more. As a result, we have enabled billions of dollars in transactions.”

The survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive from May 10-12, 2004 using a nationwide sample of 2,245 U.S. adults (aged 18 and over). The data were weighted to be representative of the total online U.S. adult population on the basis of region, age within gender, education, household income, online use, and race/ethnicity. In theory, with probability samples of this size, one could say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points of what they would be if the entire online U.S. adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. This online sample was not a probability sample.

About Reply! Inc.
Reply! Inc., (formerly Next Phase Media, Inc.), is the leading provider of online service marketplaces, where consumers are matched with qualified professional service providers. Reply!'s online service portal - www.reply.com - provides services to consumers in the following industries: residential real estate; automotives; home improvement; moving services; insurance; and financing. Reply!'s family of online marketplaces includes: iMotors; OpenAuto; RealtyNow; AgentConnect; iCastle; and CarClub. Privately held, the company has 75 employees and is headquartered in Walnut Creek, Calif.

Harris Interactive ® (www.harrisinteractive.com) a worldwide market research and consulting firm best known for The Harris Poll ® and for pioneering the Internet method to conduct scientifically accurate market research. Headquartered in Rochester, New York, Harris Interactive combines proprietary methodologies and technology with expertise in predictive, custom and strategic research. The Company conducts international research from its U.S. offices and through wholly owned subsidiaries—London-based HI Europe (www.hieurope.com), Paris-based Novatris and Tokyo-based Harris Interactive Japan—as well as through the Harris Interactive Global Network of independent market- and opinion-research firms.