Holiday shopping will make online history, says report

Holiday shoppers plan to spend a historic amount of time online instead of stores, according to Deloitte’s 31st annual holiday survey of consumer spending intentions and trends.

Deloitte's holiday survey polled over 5,000 consumers across the US with questions about their intentions for holiday shopping this year and found some surprising insights.

According to this year’s holiday survey, consumers are more likely to shop online than they are to visit popular brick and mortar locations such as discount/value stores and traditional department stores.

Online shopping is the venue of choice

While the Internet has been a top shopping destination for years, this season it runs away as the venue of choice. Whether they plan to skip the crowds at their local stores on Black Friday still needs to be seen, but their research reveals that half of consumers intend to shop for holiday gifts online this holiday season.

Comparison shopping will be a key factor for consumers. Two-thirds (66 percent) of respondents expect they’ll be “webrooming,” meaning they will look at items online before making a purchase in a store. Along that same line, half (50 percent) of shoppers will take part in “showrooming” by going to a store to look for an item, then searching online for the best price and making their purchase there instead of in store.

While half of consumers will do their holiday shopping online this year, more than four in 10 (43 percent) holiday shoppers expect they will use retailers’ “buy online, pick up in store” feature. This year’s survey also showed an increase in the number of shoppers who plan to research online before making a purchase in store (86 percent) and the number who will use smartphones while shopping (78 percent). Smartphones are most often used for informational purposes like getting store locations (61 percent), checking prices (57 percent) and browsing online (56 percent).

Perhaps most interesting from the findings are shopper expectations regarding shipping, delivery and returns. 42% of shoppers surveyed consider three-to-four day shipping “fast”, a significant drop from the 63 percent who said so last year. Instead, the majority of shoppers (83 percent) consider fast shipping to mean delivery within two days or less.

Nearly two-thirds of shoppers (64 percent) think they should be allowed to order after December 17 and still get free shipping by Christmas Eve.

Photo credit: Deloitte website