The McCannics isurvey, August 1999

The McCannics e-survey has been renamed the isurvey and is now based at www.isurvey.co.uk. This follows advice from the survey's own respondents, a majority of which in the last survey said that having a personalised domain name was "very important".

The change of name is primarily to avoid confusion with the internet site www.e-survey.co.uk, which has been taken by another company (though which is not, at the time of writing, under development).

The date used to refer to surveys has also been changed from this month. Surveys used to be dated according to the month for which sales and prices information was collected. For example, this survey, despatched in August, asked about sales and prices in July and so would previously have been dated "month ended July 1999". However, the surveys are now dated according to the month in which questionnaires were despatched, hence the current survey, e-mailed in August, is dated August.

McCannics hopes to be able to announce shortly the recruitment of many more volunteer businesses to the isurvey, raising its profile and making it a more valuable tool for economic policymakers. In the meantime, McCannics would like to thank the businesses currently taking part in the isurvey for their help so far and hopes that they will continue to spare the time to respond in future. UK-based businesses which do not already take part in the survey but would like to do so should send a blank e-mail to volunteer@isurvey.co.uk

The most recent McCannics isurvey asked questions suggested by a survey respondent, asking about advertising spend on- and off-line. These reveal that 37.5% of UK businesses with web-pages taking part in the survey have paid for advertising on the internet over the past month. This is rather lower than the 42.5% which have paid for other (non-internet) advertising over the same period (see chart, left).

However, a fair proportion (17.5% of all respondents, mostly small consultancy companies) use only internet advertising and do not pay for traditional advertising at all.

The use of internet advertising looks set to cross an important threshold. Over the next year, over half (55%) of these firms (almost all of which have had a web-site for over two years) expect to pay for internet advertising (see chart). Of these, half expect to spend £700 or more on advertising on the internet over the next year.

Comments from respondents ...

Despite widely-reported improvements in the UK economy (which led to the surprise decision by the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England to raise interest rates in September), the internet-connected firms taking part in the isurvey strike a more cautionary note. The proportion of respondents reporting an increase in sales in July 1999 compared with July 1998 was only 45%, down from 49% in the previous survey. The proportion reporting that their sales were down was 32.5%, giving a balance (proportion reporting an increase minus proportion reporting a fall) of +12.5%, down from +20.4% (see chart, right).

The balance of firms reporting that their selling prices in July 1999 were higher than in July 1998 shows a slight fall compared with the previous survey - down from +22% to +20%.

The twenty-fifth survey questionnaire was sent out on 9th August 1999 and by 16th August responses had been received from 40 businesses across the UK.

The isurvey has been operating on a pilot scale for the past two years and is now ready to show its full potential. Organisations which would like to collaborate should contact McCannics. Individual UK-based businesses which would like to take part in the survey should send a blank e-mail to volunteer@isurvey.co.uk.

All individual replies will be kept strictly confidential. Only anonymised results will be published, and your e-mail address will not be passed on to any third party.

E-mail us with comments, queries or suggestions for future topical questions at: isurvey@mccannics.co.uk