THE ROLE OF INFORMAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION IN THE POLISH CONSUMER MARKET

The paper presents results of the research conducted in 2009 with the participation of 466 Internet users via an online survey. The research showed that consumers before the purchase utilize formal sources of information about the product more often than informal ones. Nevertheless, the more they refer to the formal sources, the more they refer to the informal ones. It was also proved that in the tested group the place of residence, the time spent using the Internet and the value of a product had an influence on the prevalence of formal sources.