Holiday Shoppers Will Be Earlier, More Social, and Ready to Buy: Survey

Some 44% of shoppers plan to do some of their holiday gift buying on the Web this year, according to a new survey from e-commerce platform MarketLive and online retail consultant The E-tailing Group. That proportion is seven percentage points higher than said they’d be going online for goodies at this time last year.

Even more promising to merchants with a Web presence is the news that 39% intend to complete their holiday buying by early December. That suggests that consumers expect to come out strong in the early part of the buying season, rather than hanging back and waiting for price discounts.

The survey of 1,000 consumers, conducted in September 2010, also found that 485 of shoppers intend to purchase between six and 15 gifts, a tally comparable to that of last year. Almost two-thirds of those questioned (64%) said they plan to spend between $100 and $500 on holiday gifts this year.

The 2010 “Mindset of a Multi-Channel Shopper” survey also predicts that gift cards will be purchased by almost three-quarters of shoppers (74%). And 67% of respondents told pollsters that they plan to research gifts online this year prior to any purchase.

That indicates a real opportunity for merchants who can get a strong promotional message onto their holiday Web sites—and possibly real trouble ahead for those whose sites provide confusing or weak shopping experience.

“It’s late [in the pre-holiday season], but anything merchants can do to improve product information, customer reviews, security and return policies on their sites will work well,” says Ken Burke, CEO of MarketLive. “Any content related to building trust is going to be very well received, both by online customers and by offline customers researching online.”

While 45% of consumers said they will not pay full price for gifts this year, price took a back seat to other promotional considerations as inducements to buy. Specifically, 92% of those polled gave free shipping the highest rating as an online shopping incentive, while 81% pointed to the convenience of free returns.

In terms of social media, retailers who have joined the throngs that built a brand presence in Twitter or on Facebook over the past year had better be prepared to use those social channels for customer service. Consumers have come to expect that they will be able to get their complaints and order problems resolved within social media, so retailers should be sure to monitor those channels more thoroughly than at any other time of year to spot issues quickly.

Other findings from the MarketLive/ E-tailing Group survey:

• Loyalty to a familiar retail brand will be important to shoppers but won’t hold them if they can’t find what they want. Sixty-one percent of respondents said they will go to a competitor’s site if their preferred retailer is out of stock in a particular item.
• While shoppers generally said they would choose to get email less frequently from retailers, 40% of those who have opted in still specified that they would like to get weekly email—slightly lower than the 43% who said the same this time last year.
• In those holiday email messages, free shipping (87%) and news of sales or price markdowns (83%) are the offers consumers say they will find most compelling this year, followed by coupons (75%) and alerts about in-store promotions (61%).
• Christmas 2010 will be more mobile than ever. Overall, 36% of shoppers say they will use their mobile devices for gift shopping this holiday season: not necessarily for making actual purchases, but for looking up competitive products (17%) and for checking prices with competing retailers (16%).