80 percent of consumers think the internet will play a major role in comparison shopping, according to comScore, via The Seattle Times.

Search engine referrals to e-commerce sites, such as Amazon, rose from 39 percent of visits in April 2007, to 47 percent in April 2008. This was accompanied by a small increase in resulting sales, 25 percent to 27 percent year-over-year.

The data suggests shoppers conduct a search, visit an e-commerce site, return to their search and presumably end up making a purchase elsewhere — likely the store or site with the best rate.

Four out of five purchases resulting from an online search happen offline, after people find the best price, comScore suggests.