Newsletter 42

Online shopping this Christmas will be more buoyant than last year, despite the overall slide in retail fortunes over recent months. This is the prediction of IMRG, the online retailers’ organisation, and comes on the basis of an online poll of 2 million consumers – part of an ongoing project.

Seventy-seven per cent of respondents are planning to carry out about half or more of their Christmas shopping online, according to the survey, compared with 56 per cent last year.

According to the e-CSI Index, 80 per cent of respondents are happy with the delivery services provided by online retailers, which of course leaves a fifth who are not: evidence that there are issues here still to resolve. A similar proportion (79 per cent) are generally happy with the service they get online.

Interestingly, 86 per cent of shoppers say they will use the internet to research Christmas shopping options before buying in stores, while 59 per cent say the opposite – that they plan to research gift options in stores before buying online. Clearly the multi-channel nature of online shopping is becoming more powerful.

 

Fifty-eight per cent of respondents says that will probably start their Christmas shopping earlier this year in order to spread the cost, citing the economic slowdown as the main reason.