95% of Consumers Plan on Buying Most Holiday Gifts Online

While brick-and-mortar sales remain a robust part of the holiday shopping experience, online shopping is asserting clearer dominance than ever before this year. A walloping 95% of consumers plan to do the majority of their holiday shopping this season online, according to multi-channel engagement platform Leanplum.

Millennials and Gen-Z shoppers are leading the charge on digital and even digital-only shopping. Sixteen percent of shoppers in those groups said they planned to buy gifts online only this year. That is according to a survey Leanplum conducted of 1,000 US consumers.

En route to capturing consumer spend, retailers will turn to ad tech to hit consumers with messaging when it is likely to be most effective, and the survey suggests consumers are open to receiving pertinent signals. Seventy-four percent of respondents said they were “excited” to receive offers and sales.

But enthusiasm for deals does not extend to all kinds of messaging. Seventy-five percent of shoppers said they are annoyed or bothered by generic messages. That suggests personalization, the process of using consumer data to target advertising based on consumer identities, is growing into an expectation even at a time when consumer concerns about privacy are on the rise.