This report originally appeared in the July 2015 print issue of Casual Living

It's a big number: 1.9 million ?? that's how many U.S. households purchased a conversation or chat group in 2014. This year, 1.5% of U.S. households, another 1.7 million, plan to buy a conversation or chat group. This exclusive data hails from Casual Living's nationally representative Consumer Buying Trends Survey, which asked 2,500 U.S. households the outdoor furniture they bought in 2014, how much they spent and what they plan to buy in 2015. Projected nationally, 30% of the 2.7 million households who shopped for a conversation group in 2014 ended up not buying one. These three in 10 shoppers form what is known as the Buying Gap. If all Buying Gap households had bought and spent, on average, the amount buyers spent in 2014, conversation group sales would have potentially totaled $2.9 billion. That's 45% more than the actual 2014 retail sales of $2 billion.

In this exclusive report, Casual Living presents detailed information on conversation and chat group shopping and buying plans. The data originates from the responses of 2,500 U.S. households to an online survey conducted in December 2014.Casual Living worked with TNS Custom Research. U.S. households told Casual Living if they shopped for conversation/chat groups in 2014, if they bought, how much they spent and if they plan to buy in 2015. Because of the sample size and a respondent profile closely matching the demographics of all U.S. households, survey data can be projected nationally with a margin of error of plus or minus 2%.

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