Christmas Shopping: The Facts and Figures

Christmas Shopping: The Facts and Figures

Yodel, a delivery network that handles in excess of 155m parcels a year and has professional relationships with around 85% of the top retailers in the UK, carried out a survey focusing on Christmas shopping and where it will happen the most. Among other statistics, the survey revealed that 76% of consumers in the UK intend to buy at least half of their Christmas presents and shopping online.

This key finding from the Yodel report shows the ever-growing importance and relevance of the online marketplace. As more people use e-commerce websites, they become increasingly discerning, choosing only those that offer a smooth, hassle-free and personalised experience from browsing through to payment, whichever device or combination of devices they opt to use.

Other facts and figures from the Yodel report show that:

  • 29% of consumers in the UK have already begun their Christmas shopping

  • Only a small proportion of men and women intended to leave everything until the last minute, 13% and 5% respectively

  • A quarter of people will begin their online Christmas shopping in November, with 23% leaving it until December and 18% starting early in October

  • The most popular time for preliminary searches to begin was in September

  • A tiny 3% of respondents intend to purchase all of their Christmas shopping in physical stores

  • 30% of online shoppers plan to take advantage of pre-Christmas sales and promotions, including the notorious Black Friday. Last year, this figure stood at just 8% as measured by earlier Yodel research

Explaining what had prompted the revealing research, Dick Stead, the Executive Chairman of Yodel, said: ”The advent of online shopping, speed of delivery and pre-Christmas promotions has changed the way we shop and we wanted to understand consumers’ shopping trends.” He added that the results were of particular importance to Yodel as the company plans ahead for the seasonal spike in deliveries.

Christmas is just around the corner in business terms and Black friday is even sooner. Is your website ready to handle the influx of online shoppers? If not, then you could be seriously missing out on a share of the busy online marketplace at its very busiest time.

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