The Guide to Holiday Shopping

Introduction

As the countdown to the holiday season begins, retailers are facing into what is typically a make-or-break time of their year. In a recent study by the National Retail Federation, it was found that during this holiday season, ‘an equal number (55%) will shop online and in department stores, while 51 percent will go to discount stores, 44 percent to grocery stores, 33 percent to clothing stores and 24 percent to electronics stores. The mix of channels was further evident with 50 percent of those shopping online saying they will pick up their purchases in-store’.

With a study of U.S. consumers showing that consumers expected to spend approximately $794 U.S. dollars on average on holiday season gifts, understanding their customer journey and optimizing for it will be of significant value to major brands, online and brick and mortar retailers and the merging cohort of direct to consumer (D2C) brands.

The Online Journey

In the coming months, consumers will begin their search for gifts online. Whilst the holiday season may still be a fleeting thought for some, a certain percentage will likely begin to spend evenings and weekends browsing online stores for special gifts for friends and family. Be it on the commute home from work, in front of the TV in the evening or mindlessly browsing their smartphones on a lazy Sunday, some consumers will begin to start their shopping journey as early as the start of October.

Understanding this journey and the ecosystem of apps and tools shoppers use to plan their holiday season gifting can be a huge benefit for retailers in informing their media strategy to maximize their revenues this holiday season.

How Indeemo Can Help?

With Indeemos’s ‘always-on’ capability, and with our mobile screen-recording functionality, we can help you understand every milestone and touchpoint the omnichannel shopper journey this holiday season.

From the initial Google search, to the countless site and price comparison visits, to the buying UX, and ultimately the purchase, Mobile Ethnography coupled with Screen Recording lets you experience the full journey from beginning to end with the addition of having the consumer tell you exactly:

What they are doing?
Where they are?
How they are feeling?
What they are experiencing every step of the way?

Quantitative data is powerful at telling researchers about the number of abandoned carts, the number products saved in wish lists and detailed web traffic, but without an understanding of the human behavior behind these numbers, it is impossible to understand the ‘why’ required to help you optimize the online experience to full advantage.

Mobile Ethnography is a powerful methodology to show you the ‘why’.

For those retailers who will allocate large chunks of their marketing budget to ad-spend this holiday season, much of their efforts will be a case of “hit and hope”. Whilst A/B tests will allow them to continually improve performance, the short nature of the holiday season demands a more contextual, in-the-moment understanding of consumers' behavior.

Indeemo’s ability to embed adcepts and concepts (both video and image) within tasks provides the perfect opportunity to gain instant, authentic feedback. Similarly, our mobile screen-recording serves as a truly authentic way of understanding the effectiveness of Google, Facebook or Instagram ads as consumers navigate through search results and social media feeds in the run-up to the holiday season.

The Offline Journey

For all the convenience of online shopping, consumers will still flock to brick-and-mortar outlets to shop this holiday season. In a 2018 holiday retail survey  conducted by Deloitte, almost half of shoppers planned to shop in-store for inspiration and to avoid shipping costs. In addition, 60% of these shoppers identified the ‘ability to interact with the product’ as a key reason for shopping in-store.

Science aside, consumers still enjoy the physical experience of picking up a product off the shelf and inspecting it, especially when it comes to gifting and the personal nature of it. Gifting is one of the longest-standing, ritualistic behaviors of consumers everywhere and it pays to understand the cultural drivers for consumers around this perennial, personal event.

Traditionally, once Halloween has passed (Oct 31st) retailers everywhere begin to deck out the stores out in Holiday Season decorations and seasonal offers. However, in recent years, given the make or break nature of holiday season shopping, the retail holiday season kicks off as early as September to avoid losing any first-mover advantage.

In the 3 months leading up to the holiday season, consumers will begin to make multiple store trips and will likely make multiple purchasing decisions. By tasking your consumers with diarying their shopping journeys, you gain a rich insight into their thoughts and feelings surrounding in-store purchases.

Using traditional methodologies such as shop-alongs, in-store intercepts, and ethnographic observations is a time consuming and costly exercise. By introducing a researcher to the process, you can also risk altering the consumers' behaviors and attitudes.

By using a mobile diary study, respondents have the ability to record their in-store experiences throughout the season, in their own time. This gives you the real-life context that can so often be lost in the rush. The ‘in-the-moment’ nature of mobile ethnography means a consumer simply needs to reach into their pocket, pull out their smartphone as they stand at the shelf in a store, and record a quick video that will give you instant insight into the factors influencing their purchasing-decision in that moment. 

The Rise of Omni-Channel Shopping

The shift to online shopping over the past decade has opened a world of opportunity for retailers. With everything now available at the touch of a button, on-demand delivery means consumers can now have what they want in a few days at most. But as with any opportunity, there are also significant challenges in understanding how to effectively take advantage of this new, always-on mobile economy.

As noted in the opening of this document, 50 percent of those shopping online this holiday season will pick up their purchase in-store. This merger of both the online and physical retail stores has made it difficult for retailers to understand their omni-channel customer journey and its many touchpoints. From the initial Google search to the collection in-store, consumers will have made endless, unseen choices and decisions along their journey. In failing to understand these decisions, retailers are missing the opportunity to maximize their revenues this holiday season, and beyond.

The omni-channel shopping journey can span weeks and even months. While much research has been done on the online and in-store shopper journey independently, the marriage of the two has yet to be fully understood from a research perspective

“Your marketing and research should no longer be channel-centric, it needs to be customer-centric”

Eugene Murphy Founder & CEO, Indeemo

Summary

Understanding the feelings, experiences, motivations, behaviors, and attitudes of consumers through the holiday season can help retailers to reap the benefits of increased spending over the holiday season.

Mobile Ethnography in the agile, in-the-moment methodology that will give you a periscope into the shopper journeys. Seeing every intimate decision through the eyes of the consumer will provide the type of authentic insights that allow you to truly understand customers.

People are busier, yet spending increased amounts of time online. Understanding how and why people choose to shop either online or in-store is critical. Indeemo can help you to walk in the shoes of consumers in the manic seasonal rush.