Google and Boston Consulting Group conducted a series of surveys to understand changes in consumer purchasing behavior ahead of the holiday shopping season. Suchi Sastri, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group, discusses what the findings mean for retailers.
I work closely with retailers around the world on their large-scale digital transformations as a partner at Boston Consulting Group. As the holiday season approaches and the pandemic continues to evolve, many of my clients want to know what to expect.
Will e-commerce continue to grow at the same rate as last year?
While it’s still early, fewer U.S. holiday shoppers say COVID-19 will impact how they shop for the holidays this year — just 35% compared with 53% in 2020.
To help retailers better understand these changes, we gcash database launched a series of surveys in partnership with Google and Dynata to more than 12,000 U.S. consumers across all retail categories. Here’s what we found.
This season’s buyer will be more omnichannel than ever
How you can meet the moment with your marketing this holiday season
Highlight purchasing options by category.
- Convenience or immediacy motivates about 40% of people shopping at the grocery store, beauty and toiletries, pet care, health care, small appliances, home improvement and auto parts. We see this at Google, where searches for “now near me” have grown globally by more than 100% year over year.
- Product experience or trial motivates consumers to purchase in-store jewelry, handbags and accessories, apparel and footwear, home furnishings, mattresses, and major appliances. For example, searches for “furniture store near me” have grown globally by more than 100% year-over-year.