Black Friday is generally considered the start of the holiday shopping season, even though many retailers have holiday displays up shortly after Halloween. But those displays may not bring in much in terms of money at the brick-and-mortar locations, according to a survey by LivePerson.
The survey shows that 63 percent of consumers are planning to do a majority of their holiday shopping online. Sixty-five percent of those with tablets expect to use the devices in making their holiday purchases.
Also, a third of shoppers are starting their gift-buying earlier than ever, perhaps to beat the holiday rush. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed said they would start their holiday shopping before Thanksgiving.
The National Retail Federation research predicts that shoppers will spend $749.51 on gifts, décor, greeting cards and more, up slightly from the $740.57 they actually spent last year. NRF is forecasting holiday sales will increase 4.1 percent to $586.1 billion.
The NRF survey says the biggest portion of shoppers’ budget this year will go towards gifts for family members with the average person planning to spend $421.82 on children, parents, aunt, uncles and more. People will spend $75.13 on friends, $23.48 on co-workers and $28.13 on others, such as pets and community members. Consumers will also spend on food and candy ($100.76), greeting cards ($28.66) and flowers ($19.55.) When it comes to decorations, the average person will spend $51.99, up from $49.15 last year and the most in the survey’s history. Total spending on holiday décor will reach $6.9 billion.
An increasing amount of that shopping will move to the mobile channel in 2012, according to the LivePerson research. More than six in 10 (62 percent) of those surveyed said they own a smart phone or a tablet. As a result, half of respondents said it was important to have a mobile app or a mobile-optimized site (one that works as well with mobile devices as well as with desktop devices).
“Consumers want a shopping experience optimized for the small screen, rather than a replication of the desktop/laptop experience,” a LivePerson blog said. “What’s more, shoppers want to interact with brands real-time via their mobile devices. Forty percent would use live chat on their mobile device to get real-time help if it were available.”
The survey highlighted live chat as consumers’ preferred channel for customer service during the holiday season.
“Now is the time for businesses to think about offering real-time support on their Web sites, via mobile devices and [through] social channels,” the LivePerson blog advised.
Consumers will continue to leverage social channels this holiday season, a trend that started a couple of years ago. According to the survey, Twitter is the favored channel for product reviews, cited by 70 percent of respondents. Facebook was favored by three quarters of respondents for finding discounts, while Pinterest was the preferred method (73 percent) for information about gift ideas.