• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, October 21, 2001

Holiday Online Shoppers Looking For Promotions

A random national telephone omnibus survey sponsored by Advertising.com, and conducted by International Communications Research, concludes that though consumer confidence has, 75% of shoppers recently surveyed expect to spend at least the same amount of money for the 2001 holiday season as they did last year- with 15% of them saying they plan to spend even more. All of the surveys were conducted between September 28 and October 2, about two weeks following terrorist attacks on the nation.

As the holiday season approaches, more than 25% of consumers will be shopping online. Approximately half of those online shoppers expect to spend between $100 and $300, with an additional one fourth planning to spend in excess of $300 online.

"Consumers are increasingly looking to the Internet as their one-stop shop for the holidays," said Scott Ferber, chief executive officer of Advertising.com. "As an alternative to crowded shopping malls, the Internet provides the speed, simplicity and comparison shopping capabilities not afforded by traditional outlets."

Marketing efforts are typically enhanced with the availability of integrated offline and online incentives. Of the online shoppers surveyed, three fourths described a variety of promotions as positive influences on their buying behavior.

Online shoppers report they would be positively influenced by a variety of web-based promotions:

Influenced More 15%
Less 23
Same 60
Don’t Know 2

Promotions likely to increase purchase online:

1. Coupons
2. Free samples
3. Contests, games & sweepstakes
4. Banner ads

Specifically, nearly 50 percent of respondents cited online coupons as potentially persuasive when shopping online.

For the upcoming holiday season, those consumers with a combined household income of $75,000 or more expect to do the most online shopping, with electronics as their primary intended purchase. Overall, when asked about their likelihood to purchase certain items online, respondents ranked these items in the following order:

- Electronics 39%
- Music 36%
- Toys 34%
- Clothing 32%
- Housewares 23%
- Magazine subscriptions 11%
- Jewelry 9%

And, here’s how consumers find sites during the holidays

  +-----------------------------+------+------+  |                             | 2001 | 2000 |  +-----------------------------+------+------+  | Online equivalent of a      |
57% |  40% |  |   retail store              |      |      |  | Search engine               |  52% |  42% |  | E-mail advertisement        |      |      |  |   or promotion              |  47% |  54% |
| Friend, family or colleague |  46% |  49% |  | Online mall/shopping portal |  42% |  30% |  | Online message boards       |      |      |  |   or newsgroups             |  36% |  42% |  | Banner ad
|  24% |  33% |  +-----------------------------+------+------+  

Source: Vividence

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