American Habit of Shopping Online Increases for Holidays

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Oct 29, 6:34AM EDT

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The move to do holiday shopping online has increased most years since the dawn of broadband. This year, it is the preferred means of buying goods and services for the season. Brick-and-mortar retailers have more and more to worry about as consumers turn to the Internet.

No matter what type of retailer, holiday spending will be relatively bright, according to authors of a new study called the Deloitte 2014 Annual Holiday Survey:

The bets are in, and the consensus for this year’s holiday season is that US holiday spending will be up from last year. Deloitte’s annual holiday forecast suggests sales will increase 4–4.5 percent, and the 29th annual Deloitte holiday shopping survey confirms this optimistic outlook.

This potential sales increase could be the boon that retailers have been waiting for, or it could turn into a missed opportunity. Consumers continue to change their shopping habits as well as their expectations of retailers. Shifting spending plans, shopping processes, and expectations are largely the result of improving perceptions of the economy, an onslaught of digital technology influencing consumers, more choices from a growing pool of online competitors, and fears of security breaches.

The hacking of customer records at large retailers will not be entirely forgotten.

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Online spending continues to have its day, or seasons as it may be. However, traditional retailers will not be entirely besieged:

Although 45 percent of our surveyed consumers say they plan to shop on the Internet this holiday season, this does not necessarily mean that they prefer the online shopping experience to the in-store one. In fact, when we presented consumers with 17 retail venue categories and asked them whether they preferred the online or in-store shopping experience in each category, the in-store shopping experience came out ahead of the online experience in all 17 categories. Supermarkets, restaurants, drug stores, and home improvement stores were the venues for which the highest proportion of respondents indicated a preference for in-store shopping . The upshot: The brick-and-mortar store remains vital to the holiday shopping experience, and retailers should provide consumers with an engaging in-store experience that compels consumers to come visit these stores.

While not entirely unsettling for traditional retailers, an increase in e-commerce continues to be the enemy — and one that rises in power each year.

ALSO READ: Retailers Hiring the Most Employees for the Holidays

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.