Study reveals online holiday shopping patterns

[November 26th 2001]

Online holiday shopping patterns are significantly different from those of offline shoppers, according to the latest study by the Atlas Institute which has analyzed holiday shopping behavior data of 24 leading e-commerce companies from the day after Thanksgiving through December 24th, 2000. The goal was to reveal the times of greatest and least online holiday shopping activity and compare those patterns with offline shopping. The behavior of millions of anonymous online shoppers was used to build the conclusions to the study.

The findings of the study proved that online holiday shopping patterns are significantly different from those of offline shoppers. The following are some examples of how the two mediums differ:

• Weekdays are the most active online shopping days during the holidays, while Saturdays are the most active for offline shopping.

• Thursday, December 7th, was the biggest online shopping day as compared to offline shopping's traditional peaks of the day after Thanksgiving and the days just before Christmas.

• Online shopping tapers off approximately ten days before Christmas, most likely indicating that shoppers perceive that there is insufficient time for items to be shipped and received by Christmas. Offline shopping, on the other hand, continues to increase until just before Christmas day.

• Online shopping activity peaks during working hours at around 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

• Online shopping during the week following Christmas is very active, exceeding the overall per-week average for the holiday season.

"There are a number of ways that online advertisers can take advantage of the findings in this study," said Young-Bean Song, director of the Atlas Institute. "Many retailers derive up to 50% of their annual revenue during the critical Q4 timeframe. Therefore it is imperative that advertisers leverage the right tools and technologies to ensure they are most effectively reaching their customers online."

Here are a few suggestions on how to best reach online customers during the holiday season:

• Tailor holiday online advertising messages to people who are at work.

• Select advertising placements on the Web sites most frequented by people who are at work.

• Purchase day-part placements, when possible, to target online shoppers during the middle of the workday.

• Emphasize in messaging that shoppers still have time beyond the middle of December to order gifts and have them arrive before Christmas.

• Broaden campaigns to target the heavy post-Christmas shopping market.

Links
Atlas Institute		http://www.atlasdmt.com