Holiday Shopping

With the holidays rapidly approaching, it is important to identify the trendiest and most popular online shopping preferences among consumers this year. According to the statistics presented by the National Retail Foundation, it was identified that this year there could be a 16% increase in online shopping through web and mobile devices. This amounts to $586 billion worth of purchases that have been predicted to be made this year. And there is no doubt that the trend will continue to increase. So, what will this year holiday shopping have in store for you? Mentioned below are some trends that are likely to occur this year:

1. Showrooming – Brick and Mortar Retailers Fight Back!

Last year, customers formed the habit of going to a particular brick and mortar store, compare prices of the products they were interested in and bought those products from another store. It’s going to be different this year, because these year retailers are expected to battle it out. They are taking the fight to Amazon and other various online retailers and attracting more customers to come and shop from them instead of shopping online. You can expect competitive prices this holiday season.

2. The Mobile Shopping Craze

Mobile applications have become increasingly popular, although this is an understatement, but people are actually shopping a lot online, almost 2 or 3 times per week. Why? That is because of the pure convenience. Whether consumers use their smartphones to find out more about holiday deals, promotions or to take advantage of consumer reward programs, you can expect them to shop online using their smart devices and that is a reality. According to a report by PriceGrabber, it has been estimated that 82% of consumers this holiday season will use their mobile devices and applications to shopping and save money.

3. In-Store Digital Shopping

There are many brick and mortar retail stores that are trying hard to retain their customers by providing them a more simplified but enhanced in-store shopping experience. And in light of this, retailers are looking to boost their operational efficiency by improving their flexibility in the checkout lanes by giving their salespeople iPhones and iPads. For example, Wal-Mart has set up QR codes right next to their toy graphics which considerably aids holiday shoppers to conveniently scan and buy the product without any hassle at all and on top of that, Wal-Mart guarantees free shipping with every purchase.

4. Social Shopping: the Next Level of Shopping

There are a handful of retail stores that are implementing new ways of shopping which could amp up the entire holiday shopping experience come this December. For example, Facebook not too long ago launched Facebook Gifts, which is an appealing application for people who enjoy simple gift buying and giving. The application is fast, easy and customizable. The only potential drawback of this new shopping application on Facebook is that the recipients of the gifts get a notification of the arriving gift(s). Another great example can be taken from Pinterest which is another social networking giant. Pinterest is introducing an interactive wish list pin-board which users can use to pin up their Christmas lists. Simply ingenious!

Keeping the new trends of shopping in mind, it is now your turn to do something out of the box, something which can attract more customers to your business.