IDG Contributor Network: The power of touch could — but won't — be Amazon's Achilles' heel

A recent AdWeek piece touched on how the five senses drive luxury purchases and found that touch was the most persuasive. In the never-ending effort of physical stores to try to deliver something that e-commerce sites can't, this would seem to be a piece of good news. In theory, it is. In practice, not so much.

The upshot of the report is contained in this quote from Bob Shullman, head of Shullman Research Center: "It's fascinating to me that 17 million adults ranked touch as their No. 1 sense and virtually half of these consumers — 48 percent — reported that they bought a luxury in the past 12 months. Touch-oriented consumers are the No. 1 purchasers of luxuries. This finding suggests to me that if a marketer is advertising a luxury that can be touched, the marketer should consider emphasizing the luxury's touchability qualities in the advertising." 

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