Projections for Coming Holiday Shopping Favor Amazon

Among Americans planning to buy gifts this holiday season, a full three-quarters expect to buy something from Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). For those who routinely shop online, that percentage rises to 83%, and for Amazon Prime members the total rises to 90%.

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) are about equally likely destinations for holiday shoppers: 48.2% said they expect to buy gifts at Target and 47.6% expect to buy something at Walmart. Around 30% plan to buy gifts from Kohl’s Corp. (NYSE: KSS) and about 25% plan to buy from Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY).

The data were reported Monday by Fung Global Retail & Technology (FGRT), based on an August survey of more than 1,000 American adult internet users.

More shoppers (82%) expect to buy gifts online this year than expect to buy gifts in physical stores (76%). Among shoppers between the ages of 30 and 44, 85% of respondents plan to buy online, compared with about 76% who expect to buy gifts in physical stores.

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Managing director at FGRT, Deborah Weinswig, said:

Physical stores are losing millennial and family life stage shoppers to e-commerce: consumers who are not yet in their mid-forties are significantly more likely to shop online than in physical stores this holiday season. Expectations of buying gifts online peak among holiday shoppers ages 30-44, likely reflecting a preponderance of busy parents in this age group.

The main factor determining where Americans shop is product quality (58%), according the FGRT survey. Low prices (57%), location (56%), product availability (53%) and a wide array of choices (48%) were other top concerns. Rapid delivery for online orders (29%) and buy-online, pickup-at-store options (18%) were near the bottom of the list.

More Americans expect to spend more this year than they did last year (nearly 23%), while about 21% say they expect to spend less. That would suggest a gain of around 2% or so year over year.

However consumers expecting to spend more expect to spend only slightly more, while those who expect to cut back expect to spend much less. According to Weinswig, the FGRT survey results “suggest solid, though probably unspectacular, retail growth this holiday season.”

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