Back in November, The New York Times’ Brad Stone blogged about the growing connection between consumer shopping patterns on the web and spending in real-life retail settings.

As it turns out, some research suggests that not all online consumer activity takes away from real-world purchases. In fact, sometimes online activity assists traditional retail activity, because the Internet makes it so much easier for consumers to research the products they’re interested in.

The article dates back to November, but we found it particularly timely considering the recent concern over consumer spending and also the renewed focus on the online business world stemming from the recent Microsoft/Yahoo merger bid. From the article:

ShopLocal, a Chicago-based firm that helps retailers use their sites to drive in-store sales, says that purchases researched online but made offline, in physical stores, are booming.

The company helps retailers like Home Depot, Best Buy and Target bring their advertising catalogs and circulars to their Web sites. For the last two years, ShopLocal has been measuring Internet-influenced purchases through a combination of surveys and measuring traffic to Web pages with coupons and other discounts that can only be used offline.

The ShopLocal Index, as the company calls it, was up 29 percent through August and dipped to 22 percent for the last two months, reflecting the overall lackluster retailing sector. But this month, according to ShopLocal’s preliminary data, things have turned around; online-influenced store purchases have risen by about 50 percent over last year.

“It’s an indicator people are now doing a lot of work on the Web as they prepare to go shopping,” said Vikram Sharma, chief executive of ShopLocal. “Our sense is there has been a fair amount of pent-up demand. We’re optimistic it will result in some good things for retailers.”

In a report last spring, Forrester Research estimated that nearly $400 billion of store sales, or 16 percent of total retail sales, would be directly influenced by Web research this year. The research firm said that number would reach $1 trillion by 2011, or half of all retail purchases.

Of course, this is just one report, so it isn’t gospel just yet. All the same, we’re happy to report that eCommerce doesn’t always serve as a negative to the brick-and-mortar economy.

Check out the original article here.