Between the summer and the holidays, consumer trends and technological innovations are rapidly transforming the world of holiday shopping. To remain competitive, retailers need a game plan that addresses all aspects of the customer path to purchase.

To understand which touch points mattered to holiday shoppers during the 2016 holiday experience and what they expect from retailers check these findings:

• 47% of 2016 holiday shoppers browsed physical stores to find the perfect gift idea, while 44% take gift ideas from family and friends and more than 40% got the gift ideas by asking their loved ones.
• 47% of Millennials holiday shoppers were influenced by social media efforts such as Facebook, while 31% of Gen Zers were most inspired by Instagram.
• More than 70% of these shoppers had bought gifts for themselves during the holiday season.
• 66% of them researched for products with price less than $50, while 89% researched for products more than 100$ and 200$.
• More than half of 2016 holiday shoppers (55%) started researching potential purchases in October or earlier but 68% begin their purchasing action in November until the end of December.
• Women were more likely to start researching and purchasing both earlier than men.
• More than half of shoppers preferred email notifications, while another 24% preferred to receive offers through a direct mail.
• Three-quarters of the respondents considered product reviews to be important, besides a quarter said that the product reviews directly on a retailer’s site were the most helpful in the past holiday season.
• 64% were influenced by the offer of free shipping, besides 50% influenced by limited-time sale or promotion and 33% by the ability to buy online and pick up in store.
• Nearly two-thirds of customers (63%) write product reviews. Among those, there were 73% are more likely to do so when they were satisfied.

Graph Shows the Ease Degree of Returning Items During 2016 Holiday Season

Methodology:

Data were driven from 2,040 consumers/holiday shoppers around the world. The survey was conducted from March 29 to April 2, 2017. The consumer poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.0% age points.