Although most online shoppers say they plan to spend about the same on gifts this holiday season as last, 55% of them plan to do the majority of their shopping online, up from 49% a year ago, according to the 2009 Mindset of a Multi-Channel Shopper Survey, commissioned by e-commerce platform and services provider MarketLive, Inc., and e-commerce consultancy The E-tailing Group.
Moreover, the survey found that 26% of consumers surveyed plan to purchase more gifts online than they did last year, up from 21% a year ago. Shoppers say they buy gifts online to save time (85%), locate hard-to-find items (82%), cull through wish lists (40%) and read consumer reviews (38%).
Even with flat overall projections, MarketLive chairman Ken Burke says this holiday season won’t be too grim.
“The difference between this year and last is the inventories are lower so there won’t be as much on the store shelves or warehouses,which means deep discounting won’t be as prevalent as a year ago,” he says.
And, he adds, many merchants seem to have learned lessons from last year’s holiday season and are focusing on customer service in stores and on specific, segmented marketing online. “Smart merchants will look at consumer behavior and apply free shipping and other promotional offers to specific customer segments during specific time periods. But we may not be seeing a lot of sitewide free shipping offers given the smaller inventories.”
MarketLive conducted the online survey of 1,020 adults who had shopped online four times or more in the past year throughout September and October.
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