A new survey by ICM Research has looked at how shoppers plan to do their festive gift and grocery shopping this year.
For retailers, the big question is:
where will people be shopping – will they be buying online or on Britain’s struggling high streets?
According to the survey of 2025 people, more presents will be bought online than in stores this year, with online scooping more than half of anticipated gift spend (55%).
There are some differences by age group, with 25-54 year olds doing more of their shopping via the web than in stores. In fact only the 65+ age group will do more of their shopping in stores, and even for this group the figures are close: 48% of their expenditure on presents will be online, and 53% in shops.
The research also found that there was no area of the country where online isn’t expected to take the larger share of spend on presents: the South East and Midlands had the highest proportion of people planning to do their gift shopping via the web.
With grocery shopping however, the research found that only 17% of all items will be bought online. Ordering Christmas groceries online is most popular with 25-34 year olds (25%) and those with children under 18 (also 25%). The presence of children in a household was also found to increase the likelihood of shopping online: 31% of those with kids under 5, 30% of those with 5-10 year olds, 24% of those with 11-15 year olds and 15% of those with teenagers 16-18 will buy some or all of their Christmas groceries online.
ICM director Martin Boon said:
“Almost everyone has embraced the internet as a source of gift shopping – but it isn’t game over for the high street in Britain by any means.
“Certainly most people will be doing some of their gift shopping on the high street, and when it comes to picking out festive fare for those all-important meals, that shopping is still primarily done in person.”
Source: ICM Research / Talking Retail