New Survey Shows a Rapid Rise in Micropayments Market

The number of people buying goods online at prices below $2 has grown to some 10 million, up from 4 million nine months ago, according to a survey on micropayments whose results were released today. In the same nine months, the proportion of online buyers who bought content from more than one Web site increased from 25% to 36%, indicating buyers are increasingly comfortable with sub-$2 purchases on multiple sites, says the sponsor of the survey, Waltham, Mass.-based Peppercoin Inc., a processor of micropayment transactions. The research also indicates that the range of content and other goods in the sub-$2 category is expanding steadily. While song downloads still dominate the category, other products like games, articles, and ring tones were mentioned frequently by survey respondents. “The market may be growing beyond the initial groundbreaking content areas, such as digital music,” Matt Kleinschmit, a director at Ipsos-Insight, said in a statement on the results. Ispsos-Insight conducted the survey. The figure for total buyers of content under $2 relies on an extrapolation from the randomly selected sample of 1,100 Americans aged 12 and up canvassed in the survey, which was conducted by phone and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.