With the holiday season right around the corner, there are already a number of hot items that are picking up in popularity. With that, marketers can take advantage of these trends if they just pay attention to the right ones, according to Think With Google. Here now are the site’s top five suggestions for hottest trends going into this holiday season…
Mobile
Plenty of statistics indicate that mobile devices – and their coordinative apps – will definitely pick up on sales this forthcoming season. During late last year, almost 35 percent of all online traffic came from mobile devices, a 40 percent increase from the previous year.
In addition, sales of smartphones and tablets increased three times since 2011, with a 19.1 percent increase overall.
Those who use their smartphones for shopping rounded around 52 percent last year, according to a report from Google and Ipsos MediaCT, reported earlier this year.
Finally, 40 percent of shopping for Black Friday was done with mobile devices – a stat that’s likely to repeat this year.
Black Friday’s Going Grey
When it comes to Black Friday, some trends are changing, as some retailers prefer to start their promotions and sales earlier – even if that means in the midst of Thanksgiving Day itself.
Approximately 29 percent of shoppers prefer to look around before Halloween even rolls around, while 19 percent of customers actually don’t start until Black Friday/Cyber Monday. 48 percent don’t jump on the shopping bandwagon until December.
Finally, consumer interest in Black Friday has gone up, with a 27 percent year-over-year increase from 2012, according to Google Data.
As far as the top shopping day in the sales period, Black Friday still rules, although December 21st and 23rd come close behind, according to a 2013 MasterCard SpendingPulse report.
Spending time on shopping
Some buyers prefer impulse purchases, but a majority prefer taking their time, according to certain statistics.
For instance, the time spent on digital pages looking at items has increased over the past three years, going up from 3 hours and 11 minutes to 5 hours and 56 minutes this past year. Meanwhile, popular shopping categories like toys and home appliances have also gotten more attention, going from 9.9 to 12 hours and 13 to 15.8 hours respectively, according to the Ipsos MediaCT report.
Finally, in terms of references, shoppers generally go with at least 12 sources of information – more than double the five reported back in 2010.
Spending on the rise, even with a decrease of in-store purchases
When it comes to how purchases are made, the Wall Street Journal reported that foot traffic has decreased in stores, from 37 billion in 2010 down to 17 billion in 2013. However, spending is on the rise, with retail sales blooming from $681 billion to $783 billion in that same time frame – showing the power of virtual shopping.
During these purchases, 84 percent of smartphone shoppers actually used their device in a store to check for significant values, according to the Google Shopper Marketing Agency Council and M/A/R/C/ Research.
Deals Aplenty
Finally, deals play a big part in purchases, as a number of retailers offer them quite often, even throughout the shopping weekend.
92 percent of shoppers actually check prices online before making their purchases, searching for the best money-savers. 91 percent of those polled believe that a low price is a huge selling point to scoring a monster deal as well. Free shipping is also a factor, coming up second place behind buying an item conveniently online, according to the Shop.org Spring Planning Guide published earlier this year.
Finally, according to a study from comScore and UPS, 83 percent of online shoppers don’t mind waiting for delivery on an item, provided that a free shipping option is provided.
Source: Think With Google