At two weeks away from the busiest holiday shopping period of the year, many shoppers are already buying the buy button.
Cardlytics, a company that provides an online rewards platform for financial institutions, claims that 40% of vacation expenses take place in the four weeks leading up to Black Friday and that the Black Friday results of the year are the same. last year represent 16% of the total. spend.
With the help of its proprietary platform, the company analyzed vacation spending from one year to the next between 2015 and 2016 in order to identify trends for its report "2017 Vacation Expenses: Detail of Retail Purchases".
As part of their research, Cardlytics divided vacation buyers into distinct segments defined by the time they shop. According to their findings, the vast majority of holiday shoppers are people who shop all season.
"There are four distinct segments of timekeeping for the holidays, which last three weeks each," says Cardlytics, "Each segment contributes to the overall expense of the holidays."
Cardlytics: Four Distinct Timing Segments for Buyers
Sociomantic Labs, a programmatic advertising solution, conducted similar research on vacations and retailers experienced a 23% increase in sales from one year to the next during the week preceding the Black Friday-Cyber Monday period.
In preparation for this year's holiday shopping season, the digital marketing platform, VigLink surveyed 500 consumers to determine their holiday shopping preferences.
The vast majority of respondents to the Viglinks survey – 40% – said that they would start shopping for the holidays in November. The percentage of people who said they started in October was almost equal to those who said they started in December (19.4% versus 20.2%).
When VigLink asked participants where they were most likely to gather information on holiday shopping, the first three resources were friends (58%), reviews on a company's website ( 46%) and third party reviews. blogs, forums, etc. (38%).
Thirty-two percent said they turned to social media for information on holiday gift shopping.
In the field of holiday shopping, 70% answered "customers" when they asked to name the types of information "most useful" to make a buying decision, while 57% provided price information (including coupons and discounts), and 50 percent of product specifications listed.
Valassis, a campaign management platform, also surveyed consumers, specifically interviewing 500 Cyber Monday shoppers, to determine their pre-sales routines. Referring to the day before Cyber Monday as Sunday Sofa, Valassis wanted to know how shoppers would prepare for the holiday shopping day online.
According to his findings, 45 percent of shoppers will spend two hours or more at home looking for Cyber Monday transactions. Of the survey participants who plan to do home-based Sunday Canapés research, 52% will look for bargains on their desktop or laptop and 36% will search on a mobile phone.
According to Valassis, nearly two-thirds (63%) of cyber-shoppers who search at home and on the road will use their mobile phones.
Last week, Adobe released a report forecasting online vacation sales to reach $ 107.4 billion. According to Adobe data, Cyber Monday this year will be the largest online shopping day of history – generating sales of $ 6.6 billion (up 16.5% compared to last year's revenues).
In addition, as we reported last month, Deloitte is forecasting big gains for online retailers, anticipating an 18 to 21 percent increase over last year's results, with e-commerce surpassing in-store purchases.
"Brands and retailers who develop their holiday media strategies with consumer needs in mind are more likely to communicate relevant and timely messages to consumers," says Curtis Tingle, Valassis Marketing Director, "and to secure a bigger pie during this critical shopping season. "
About the author
Amy Gesenhues is the general reporter for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for land and search engine marketing. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning columnist for a number of dailies in New York, Texas. With over ten years of experience in marketing management, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs.com, SoftwareCEO.com, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more articles from Amy.