Retail mobile strategy has been a hot topic all year and has made a dent in holiday shopping intentions especially in price checking behavior. Showrooming is no longer seen as a phenomenon. It is a permanent component to product purchases. The data shows this to be true as 53% of consumers indicated that they would look for lower prices online in 2013 and 52% indicated the same in this year’s study. What is interesting is that 25% of “showroomers” intend to utilize retailer mobile apps to check prices this season. Whereas last year, they simply headed to the Net.
Buying intentions also reveal that the use of online resources continues to evolve as a path-to-purchase category by category. While many categories showed the same path-to-purchase over 2013, Toys and Home Improvement/Tools saw a significant change over last year. In 2013, respondents who indicated that they intended to make purchases in those categories primarily specified that they would review and purchase in-store. 2014’s results revealed that respondents had equal intentions to review online/buy in-store as well as review in-store/buy in-store. This shift implies that shoppers are utilizing online resources more often to narrow searches (product features and price) and then heading to retailers that offer the options that met their criteria.
According to the results, Facebook gave up holiday-gift-idea market share to Pinterest this year. In 2013, 72% of respondents indicated that they would turn to Facebook for recommendations. In contrast, only 66% will look to Facebook this year. Pinterest is up 6% (30%) over last year’s 24%. Twitter (2%) and Instagram (2%) had insignificant movement, picking up no share.
For the complete results of TrendSource’s 2014 Pre-Holiday Consumer Insights Buying Intentions Study, and an infographic that summarizes the findings, click here.
About This Study
Methodology: TrendSource conducted this research study by surveying North American Field Agents in the MSI database between October 22nd and November 10th, 2014. The results represent 2,476 online respondents who met the qualifying criteria of confirming intent to shop for gifts in the 2014 holiday season. All respondents opted in to participate voluntarily.
