Most e-retailers cutting off ground shipping for Christmas by Dec. 18
Buying Christmas gifts online will become more expensive than it is now on or before December 18 – that’s when two third of e-retailers in a Shop.org/Shopzilla survey have set the deadline on ground shipping for Christmas delivery.
The Sixth Annual eHoliday Study, which this year surveyed 116 online retailers and 2,781 online consumers, also found that shoppers are using a wide range of resources to shop for holiday gifts. Some 70% of shoppers have visited a specific retailer’s web site to look for gifts, while 31% have shopped in a store and 32% visited a search engine to determine what they wanted to buy online.
Online shoppers are turning to specific web features to get their shopping done. The one most popular with the consumers surveyed was the online catalog, used by 62%. 59% said they had used consumer product reviews, 54% clearance page sales, and 51% featured sale pages to make decisions about what gifts to buy this season.
Some retail site features specifically attached to gifts are getting online shoppers’ attention his year, with 54% of those surveyed saying shipping deadline calendars were important, 56% citing the availability of gift receipts and 50% the ability to purchase gift cards cited. Only one in five consumers indicated a gift wrapping service was important.
Gift cards were a focus of consumers surveyed. 33% planned to purchase at least one gift card online this season, with 64% saying they would mail the card to the recipient, 24% saying they’d have the card mailed to them, and 14% planning to send the gift card electronically to the recipient . Most of the shoppers surveyed – 86% - said they would be likely to go online to redeem any gift cards they may receive themselves this season. Some 73% of the online retailed polled are giving shoppers the ability to purchase gift cards online, while 77% will allow shoppers to redeem gift cards or certificates on their web sites.
“The ability to buy gift cards online creates a virtual utopia for shoppers who hate to deal with crowded malls at this time of year,” says Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, a trade association for online merchants. “Retailers are already preparing for the days after Christmas so people who want to redeem gift cards online will have plenty of merchandise to choose from.” Shopzilla is a comparison shopping site.
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