Almost Half of Holiday Shoppers Plan to Buy Via Mobile This Year, Survey Finds

Mobile technology is reshaping the holiday shopping experience and that can benefit credit unions.

Most people plan to head to a brick-and-mortar story to do their holiday shopping this year, but almost half of them also plan to shop on their mobile devices as well, according to a new survey from Citi Retail Services. However, rewards will drive many of those purchase decisions, it found.

The survey of 1,000 U.S. adults revealed that 73% planned to go to physical stores to buy holiday gifts this year, but 42% also planned to shop from their smartphones and tablets. In addition, 57% planned to use their computers to shop, and 13% said they planned on using a virtual assistant such as Alexa or Siri.

“What we’re seeing is that technology is altogether reshaping the holiday shopping season,” Citi Retail Services Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Workforce Development Leslie McNamara said. “Consumers are turning to connected devices to purchase gifts in droves and for retailers, this means rethinking their marketing strategy to encompass a robust strategy – including voice technology – to reach consumers in their evolving channel of choice and ensure a seamless shopping experience.”

GenXers and millennials appear to be leading this evolution. Over half — 60% of millennials and 53% of GenXers — said they plan on using computers to shop this year; 55% of millennials and 48% of GenXers also planned to use mobile devices. Notably, more GenXers than millennials planned to use voice assistants (22% compared to 17%).

The data comes on the heels of a different study, by Auriemma Consulting Group, which found that although the mobile payments market is still tiny, making up just 0.6% of debit card transactions in the second quarter of 2018, the share of debit transactions made via mobile wallets increased 75% year over year. The study also reported that 77% of mobile wallet transactions involved Apple Pay.

Mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay have become a way for credit unions and other debit card issuers to join the mobile payments fray without having to develop their own apps.

Channels aside, consumers are also enticed by rewards programs, according to the Citi Retail Services survey. More than three-quarters (84%) said they planned to shop at stores where they are rewards members, and 60% said they’ve accumulated rewards throughout the year so they can spend them on holiday gifts. A whopping 83% said they were members of at least one rewards program, and about a quarter said they belonged to five or more.

The habit appears to save respondents a lot of money. More than a quarter (26%) said they expected rewards programs to save them at least $200 during the holiday season. Younger consumers were more optimistic: 33% of GenXers and 28% of millennials said they expected to save at least $200 by leveraging rewards programs.

“There’s an immense opportunity to engage consumers in these crucial moments,” the report said. “In addition, the CRS research showed that consumers are keenly aware of which rewards programs they are enrolled in, with nearly nine out of ten (88%) — and 95% of millennials — confirming they are more loyal to stores where they are a rewards member.”

The report also highlighted some other digital buying habits:

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