A survey by Market Track in the US suggests that buyers will be making “holiday” purchases earlier than ever this year and also spending more with Amazon. Although they will also be balancing the spend with online and offline depending on price.
The discounting on the Thanksgiving weekend seems to be “training” shoppers to make purchases earlier. 83% reported they intend plan to do the majority of their holiday shopping on Cyber Monday or earlier. 41% of shoppers also plan to shop online on Thanksgiving compared to 11.1% in 2014. 36% say they will shop in stores in 2015 compared to 23% last year.
Now, what this means to UK ecommerce sellers is moot. But with British retailers expected to really go for Black Friday and Cyber monday again: the trend on this side of the Atlantic is doubtless likely to be similar. Especially if the hype gets bigger.
Traci Gregorski of Market Track said: “This holiday shopping season, shoppers will have more options to shop where and how they want than ever before and they won’t be forced to fight the crowds in-store during a single day event to get the best deals. The gap will close on price differences offered online and in-store, and there will be a move toward retailer messaging that emphasizes making things easy for the shopper such as buy online, pick-up in-store, free shipping on out of stock merchandise, and faster delivery for online orders.”
