Over half of shoppers will utilize physical retailers for majority of their holiday shopping this year.
Retailers with a physical presence will see a 57.3% share when it comes to where consumers plan to complete the majority of their purchases – either shopping directly in-store (31.7%), buying online and then picking up their purchase in the store (15.2%), or buying directly from the retailer’s website (10.4%), according to a new survey from JLL Retail. The two most popular categories for physical retailers are discount stores (26.8% of shoppers) and department stores (21.1% of shoppers).
“This year shoppers are visiting both digital and physical outlets, which reflects the continued merging of shopping channels that has been happening in retail over the past few years,” said Greg Maloney, CEO of JLL Retail. “The role of the retail store and shopping center will continue to transform from a transactional only model to an immersive and experiential one. While statistical modeling suggests an increase of up to 5%, I believe we are in uncharted territories from a consumer strength perspective and, as such, believe we could see holiday sales push upwards of 6% this year.”
As the multichannel shopping experience continues to grow, industrial real estate also plays a big role as both digital and physical retailers look to reduce costs by keeping inventory in one central warehouse location.
“Industrial real estate is at a premium with both e-commerce and clicks-to-bricks retailers relying on warehouse space as retail channels continue to blend, especially in and near urban cores where traditional warehouses and distribution centers are few and far between,” said Matt Powers, executive VP of JLL’s Retail/e-commerce distribution practice. “To account for these densely populated markets and growing multichannel demand, companies need to consider innovative solutions to last mile delivery that reshape the conventional logistics landscape.”
In other key findings from the report:
• Department and discount stores are popular choices among female shoppers this holiday season (22.9% and 13.1% respectively). But the most surprising statistic is that 33.3% of young Millennial women indicated that they would be doing most of their holiday shopping at a department store, while Boomer women (17.4%) will visit discount stores this holiday season. Comparatively, men will be visiting electronics (8.8% to 3.1%) and jewelry stores (2.5% to 0.6%) more than women this holiday season.
• The biggest jump in habits this year will be consumers desire to shop via their mobile devices, with just over half (50.3%) indicating they will make at least one purchase from their phones. This is a huge increase over last year when only 22.2% indicated they would do so.
• Men plan on spending more money than women, with 30.6% of men saying they will spend more than $750 while only 26% women indicated they would do the same. Comparatively, women (44.4%) indicated that they would have more moderate budgets, in the $250 to $750 range, compared to men (36.8%) with a similar budget. And 44.4% in said they plan to spend over $500 on holiday gifts.
• Shoppers plan to use their mobile device to look for deals and discounts (39.1%), product reviews (34.5%), get inspiration for gifts (30.0%), and check physical store inventory (21.9%) before heading to the store. Gen X shoppers are more likely to use their phones to make online orders compared to other age groups. Boomers are the most likely to check product reviews on their phones prior to purchase.
• Thirty-four percent of consumers said they plan on starting their shopping before Thanksgiving this year, while another 28.6% of shoppers plan to do their shopping over Thanksgiving weekend. Fewer shoppers, 16.9% down from 18.3% in 2017 are waiting until just two weeks before Christmas to start their shopping.
To read the full report, visit link.jll.com/Holiday2018.