Holiday Shoppers Turning To Social Media And Internet

Digital technologies continue to drive a new approach to shopping, with social media and mobile phones becoming key influencers this holiday season, according to a new survey of holiday retail spending and trends by Deloitte.

Social media is gaining traction with 17 percent of consumers planning to use social media during their holiday shopping, and 60 percent plan to use it to find discounts, coupons and sales information, More than half (53%) plans to use social media to research gift ideas, while 52 percent plan to check the gift wish lists of friends and family.

Consumers in all age groups plan to embrace social media over the holidays. While more than half (52%) of those who expect to use social media during the shopping process are in the 18-29 years old age group, 33 percent are in the 30-44 years old age group and 12 percent are in the 45-60 years old age group.

The mobile phone is another digital tool for the holidays that is on track to be used by 19 percent of consumers to help with their holiday shopping. Those consumers plan to find store locations (55%), research prices (45%), find product information (40%), get discounts and coupons (32%) and read reviews (31%). A quarter plan to make a holiday purchase with their phone.

The Internet ranks as a top shopping destination and continues to see steady growth. Nearly a quarter (22%) of consumers indicate they will shop primarily online this year and many are using the Internet to find special offers, with 44 percent of shoppers expecting to use a coupon they get online.

Reviews have become another key online source of information, with 39 percent of consumers indicating they often read consumer-generated reviews of stores or products online, and one-quarter (25 percent) saying they will likely purchase a product this holiday season based on an online recommendation. More than a third (34 percent) say that online consumer reviews and ratings influence their buying decisions more than advertising.

"Consumers are turning to mobile, online and social media during their entire holiday shopping experience," said Stacy Janiak, vice chairman and Deloitte's U.S. Retail leader. "Retailers should consider harnessing this activity to turn browsers into buyers with one-click access to coupons, promotions and purchasing tools."

"This year's leaner in-store inventories may also open the door for retailers to lure customers to their online channels where it is easier to access inventory, no matter where it is located."

The Internet is also changing the traditional store-based purchase process. Almost half of consumers (48%) say they like the convenience of shopping with multi-channel retailers, and 78 percent indicate they have purchased an item in a retailer's store after viewing or researching the product online. In addition 65 percent have done the opposite and purchased an item on retailer's website after viewing it in the store or catalog.

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iPhone Most Popular Touchscreen Device

Touchscreen mobile phone adoption in the U.S. showed a significant 159 percent growth rate during the past year to 23.8 million users, according to a new report from comScore.

The growth in touchscreen device adoption outpaced the already strong 63 percent growth in U.S. adoption of smartphones.

"Touchscreen phones have quickly gained adoption as new devices have flooded the mobile marketplace," said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of Mobile. "It's clear that consumers are embracing touchscreen interfaces that allow them to easily navigate the increasingly powerful and complex services afforded by new phones.

"This is a trend that should continue to pick up as additional touchscreen devices, many of them running the Android operating system, arrive in the market before the holiday shopping season."

The Apple iPhone ranked as the top touchscreen device with 32.9 percent of touchscreen users age 13 and older, nearly four times larger than the market share of the next largest device, the LG Dare (8.7%). LG Voyager ranked third with 7.8 percent of the market, followed by the Blackberry Storm (7%) and Palm Treo (6.5%).

"The iPhone clearly set the trend in the industry for touchscreen devices, so it's no surprise that it has the largest share of the market," said Donovan.

"But as other players have entered the touchscreen market with compelling devices, competition is clearly heating up."

Unsurprisingly, smartphones in general and touchscreen devices specifically tend to be more popular among younger users. While 38.8 percent of all mobile subscribers are under the age of 35, 51.4 percent of smartphone users are in the same age group, as are 57.7 percent of touchscreen device users.

 

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Email Marketing Most Popular Channel For Consumers

The majority of marketers are using multichannel campaigns, but less than half know what channels their customers prefer, according to a new study by Forrester Consulting, sponsored by ExactTarget.

The study found the key to selecting the best channels for customer communication is to know something about customer preference and behaviors. Only 32 percent of marketers know how customers behave across channels and only 37 percent know what channels their customers prefer to use.

The majority (92%) of online consumers have opted-in for email marketing, making it the most popular channel for permission-based promotional messages across every age group, according to ExactTarget's "2009 Channel Preference Study."

Half of consumers consider unsolicited messages from companies whom they regularly do business with unacceptable, up from 26 percent in 2008.

When it comes to social media, seventy percent of consumers who visit Facebook at least once a month are a "fan" of at least one company/brand and they also say they have never given a company permission to send them information through a social network.
Marketers should use social media to listen and engage with customers, not to market to them.

"The bottom line is that in an industry where new digital communications make it easier to send a variety of messages, it's imperative that marketers not only send the right message, to the right person, at the right time, but that they use the right channel as well," said Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget's director of research and strategy.
 

Facebook Attracting Younger Users In The U.K.

The number of 15-24 year olds in the U.K. visiting social networking sites reached 6.8 million in June, up 14 percent compared to the previous year, according to a new report from comScore.

The overall audience of social networkers in this age group is up substantially during the past year, but the time spent on social networking sites is down 9 percent. The overall decrease in time spent on the sites appears to be due to younger users spending less time on secondary social networking sites.

"Recent reports have suggested that 15-24 year olds in the U.K. are moving away from social networking sites because they're no longer cool as older users have encroached on their virtual space. comScore research indicates that is simply not the case," said Mike Read, SVP and Managing Director, comScore Europe.

"In fact, more 15-24 year olds are using social networking sites than a year ago, so there isn't any particular aversion to the activity. What does appear to be happening is that younger users are beginning to consolidate around Facebook and are spending less time on competing sites."

Younger users are increasingly moving towards Facebook as their main social networking destination, even though Facebook has a significantly older user profile than MySpace and Bebo. Specifically, 77 percent of Facebook visitors are age 25 or older, compared to 65 percent of Bebo visitors and 69 percent of MySpace visitors.

"These data suggest that not only are younger social networkers not avoiding their older counterparts, but they are actually gravitating towards a site that skews more heavily towards users age 25 and older," added Read.

"It's likely that the age of one's peers on a social networking site is not a critical factor in how 15-24 year olds will spend their time online. But as people's digital media lives become increasingly fragmented, users are craving the simplicity of fewer platforms - and the dominant social networking platform right now appears to be Facebook."

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