Retailers and marketers should be ready for the holiday season with modern market research. CivicScience gathered and analyzed consumer opinions that are highly relevant for 2015 planning:

1.     Know Your Early Shoppers from Your Procrastinators
In 2014, it was found that only 17% of consumers start shopping before the Fall season, while 28% wait until the few weeks prior to Christmas. Early birds tend to be women, 59% are over age 35, they pay attention to price, and they are more active than average on Pinterest and YouTube. The procrastinators? Probably no big surprise that they are more likely to be employed men, aged 25-54, who consume a lot of their TV content online. This latter group may be highly persuadable toward online shopping.

2.     Consumers Feel “Meh” About Big Sales Events on Thanksgiving and Black Friday
Last year, 90% of U.S. adults in 2014 told CivicScience they had no intentions of shopping on Thanksgiving Day, despite the sales deal hype. And validating consumers’ stated plans in 2014, Black Friday last year saw fewer shoppers (and less sales revenue) than 2013, according to the National Retail Federation.

3.     Online Shopping Decks the Malls
Consumers are favoring shopping online over physical stores. As of September 2015, 34% of holiday-shopping adults say they plan to do more than 50% of their holiday shopping online this year. Last year, more traded the Black Friday in-store experience for online: 17% of adults said they would do all or most of it online (a 7% increase over 2013), and about 30% of adults planned to shop on Cyber Monday in 2014.

4.      Bah-Humbug In-Store Experiences?
It’s hard to tell whether it’s the store experience that’s driving up e-commerce or the convenience of online shopping that’s turning people off to stores. In 2014, CivicScience found that 63% of consumers who said they’re shifting as much of their holiday shopping online as possible or minimizing their trips to stores are doing so because they “don’t like” or “tolerate” shopping in stores.
Top in-store turn offs? Crowds (32%) and lines (15%) rank highest.  Those in households earning over $150,000 per year are the most turned off by crowds, and crowd-haters are more likely to say they make only one big shopping trip to “get it all done at once.”

5.     Throwing Stores a Little Holiday Cheer
It’s not all bad news for physical stores. 21% of U.S. adults in 2014 said they love or mostly enjoy in-store holiday shopping – and younger consumers are more likely to feel this way. What do consumers like the most? Top of the list are holiday music and decorations. And, these folks are more likely to make at least four separate holiday shopping trips.

These findings came from a collection of reports published by CivicScience from September 2014 – January 2015 as part of the retail holiday shopping season, as well as 2015 polls that started in September 2015. Responses were gathered using CivicScience’s national, opt-on polling network. To access the full compilation of these 2014 season reports and to get more details about the collection samples, visit: http://civicscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Insight-Report-Holiday-Shoppers-2014-CivicScience.pdf

About the Author
Jennifer Sikora is the chief marketing officer for CivicScience, which gathers and makes available current and trending consumer insights in real time through its platform. She has over 18 years of marketing and market research executive experience.