Software: buying it from a store vs. downloading it

Factual Questions
1

I’m trying to find some reliable information on consumer trends regarding software purchases, but my Google-fu is weak tonight. More specifically, I’m wondering how much software is purchased through traditional retail channels (buying the software in a box and installing it from discs) versus online (pay and download it from the company’s website).

It’s the end of the week and I’m just about brain-dead, so my search terms have been variants of “buying software online versus in store”, but the results are not what I’m looking for. I am hoping to find a recent study or at least some figures from a reliable source.

I would appreciate any guidance–better search terms, a study you heard about, whatever–you smart Dopers could provide. Thanks!

2

You might find these sales reports useful.

Here is a graphic which uses that source.

3

Thanks a bunch! I didn’t even think to look at the Census Bureau (did I mention I was brain dead tonight?)

4

Actually, after thinking about it, that might not be exactly what you want, since it probably includes boxed software purchased and shipped from an online retailer in the E-commerce numbers.

5

Yeah, I was just looking at the spreadsheets in more detail. I tried another search term “buying software online” and this thread showed up as one of the hits!

Thanks for your help, though.

6

You might try “direct download” or “digital distribution” in your searches. That may help narrow the search down some.

7

Are you tracking people that buy boxed software, but don’t use the (usually) outdated cd?

I’ve learned not to waste time installing from a boxed CD. A lot of times the product update makes you uninstall for a newer version. That’s frustrating when it’s been on your hard drive less than 30 minutes.

I always check the website for a new install image before using the cd. I would expect that a lot of people do the same. The statistics would be very interesting.

8

I think he’s talking about ditching the box and CD entirely, by purchasing a copy of the software and downloading it directly. It’s become pretty popular in the 2-3 years, especially with games.

9

Yeah, I started wondering after I went onto a website to look at software and they had two options for getting a trial version of their software: you could request that a CD be sent to you (at a cost of $10) or you could download directly. I wondered why anyone would spend $10 in this day an age for trial software just for a CD.

10

Well for one you know you got a decent copy. For instance, with Ubantu, I’ve never been able to download a copy of this and have the checksum verify correctly. I had to send away for the CD. It was free so that’s no big deal, but I found if it’s something like that you definately want the CD.

11

Here’s a press release that claims in 2009 the PC game market was pretty evenly split between digital distribution and physical copies. That’s by unit sales. By dollar amount, though, digital distribution only had 36% of the market, probably due to a lot of cheap “casual” and older titles.