Ecommerce cointinues to reshape the way Americans shop for the Christmas holidays, with more of us shopping earlier, eroding the previous prominence of Black Friday.
CPC Strategy, an ecommerce research and consulting firm for the retail industry, asked 1,500 consumers about their holiday shopping plans this year. The survey found that “Thanksgiving weekend, which includes Black Friday and Cyber Monday, doesn’t hold much weight in the numbers,” CPC says.
Instead, shoppers are divided between two extremes – shopping early and shopping late -- with 35.5% planning to start shopping for gifts before Thanksgiving and 32% planning to start their shopping in December.
Amazon’s wildly popular Prime Day in July could be part of the reason for consumers doing their holiday shopping early, CPC suggests. This year Prime Day sales grew by more than 50%.
“The fact that 72.1% of shoppers plan to seek out gifts on Amazon.com shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone,” CPC adds. However, the poll also found that 60.4% of shoppers plan to shop in-store at Walmart, Target or other big box retailers, and 38.6% plan to shop at those same stores online.
“Put simply, Q4 will be a big deal for big box retailers, who have been fighting to stay alive in the face of Amazon’s massive popularity,” CPC says.
In addition, 46% of shoppers plan to buy at specialty retailers catering to specific demographics, such as Chewy.com, Anthropologie and Sephora.
While 73.5% of shoppers plan to spend about the same as they did in 2016, 14.6% of shoppers plan to spend more, with 30% planning to spend $250-$499, and 26.7% planning to spend $500-$1,000.