US retailers are preparing for a very ‘digital’ upcoming festive season, with consumers to do nearly half of their holiday shopping online while free deliveries and shipping promotions are likely to influence their decision on where to shop, the latest survey by National Retail Federation (NRF) has shown.
According to NRF’s Holiday Consumer Spending Survey conducted by the research firm Prosper Insights and Analytics, US consumers celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah and/or Kwanzaa will spend an average of $805.65 on food items, decorations, gifts and more over this year’s holiday season, the highest amount in the survey’s 14-year history. It corresponds to a slight increase of 0.4% compared to the holiday period last year when consumers spent $802.45.
The survey revealed that US consumers increasingly turn to the internet for their holiday purchases, with 46.1% of the respondents planning to do their shopping (both browsing and buying) online this season, up from 44.4% last year. This is the highest figure since 2006 when NRF put up the topic in the survey for the first time.
Of those who plan to shop online, the vast majority (93.1%) will be looking for free deliveries when shopping for their holiday items. Nearly half of the respondents (46.5%) want to take advantage of retailers’ click & collect service giving them the possibility to buy products online and pick them up in store or choose ship-to-store options.
“Millennial” online shoppers are most likely to go for same-day delivery – the “instant gratification” option when it comes to shipping and fulfillment. Thus, 16.7% of online shoppers aged 18-24 and 15.9% of 25-34 year-olds said they will use the same-day delivery option when buying gifts, décor and other holiday items, compared to just 7.8% among other age groups.
“The surprise factor isn’t the numbers surrounding Millennials and their planned use of retailers’ innovative digital offerings, it’s the power that this cohort of adults has when it comes to influencing retailers to speak their language,” Pam Goodfellow, Prosper’s Principal Analyst, said. “Young adults and Millennials are incredibly savvy when it comes to finding the right gift at the right price at the right place.”
With e-commerce booming, the trend goes increasingly towards m-commerce with consumers turning to their mobile devices for shopping. The survey found that 21.4% of smartphone owners will use their device to purchase holiday items this year, the highest figure since monitored by NRF for the first time in 2011. Additionally, more consumers will use their smartphone to research products (37.9% vs. 35.8% last year) and to look up retailer information like store hours and directions (28.4% vs. 26.9% last year). One in five (20.3%) will specifically use their smartphone to look up product availability in a store.
Shopping via tablets is also on the rise, with nearly half (47.5%) of the tablet owners planning to use their device to research products while 34.5% said they will use their tablet to make a holiday purchase of some kind, a slight increase compared to last year (33%). Nearly one-quarter (23.5%) will check for in-store availability from their tablet.
When asked about the most important factors in their decision on where to shop during the holiday season, nearly three-quarters (73.1%) named price discounts and six in 10 (60.7%) cited product quality. More than half (58.6%) also value a good range of products while two in five (45.3%) said a convenient location helped them decide.
When it comes to online shopping in particular, 46.7% said free shipping/shipping promotions are important factors in their decision on where to shop. Nearly three in 10 (28.3%) respondents value easy-to-use websites or mobile sites.
NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay, said: “We continue to see positive momentum in retail sales growth, giving us reason to believe consumers will show up this holiday season as they look to take advantage of all of retailers’ promotional offerings. In an effort to attract all shoppers – from the extremely price sensitive to the online millennial, retailers will be offering exclusive incentives, low prices, price-matching, top toys and everyone’s favorite – free shipping and ‘buy online pick up in store’ offers.”
The NRF 2015 Holiday Consumer Spending Survey was designed to analyse consumer behaviour and shopping trends related to the winter holidays. The survey polled 7,276 US consumers and was conducted for NRF by Prosper Insights & Analytics from October 5-13, 2015.
