A set of holiday shopping statistics shared by Constant Contact illustrates the growing importance of social media for retailers, especially during the holiday shopping season.
It seems that holiday shoppers are starting earlier every year. Many people now shop on Thanksgiving Day. But, like always, many consumers still research products online and buy in brick and mortar stores. Still, having information available to them online is very important for driving sales at your brick and mortar stores. If they are going to be on a website this holiday season, wouldn’t you want it to be yours?
Here’s a short sampling of holiday shopping stats that show how important social media is for promoting local brick and mortar stores:
- 65% browse online and buy off line
- 90% of sales take place in brick and mortar stores
- Online sales will increase by 15.1% this year
- Mobile is expected to impact 87% of buying decisions in 2013
- 66% of Black Friday purchases last year were the result of social media interaction
- 57% of consumers use Twitter to determine which stores to visit
- 30% of Twitter users begin tweeting about holiday shopping before October
- 55% of Twitter users discuss gift ideas on Twitter
- 64.8% of consumers use social media to find the perfect gift
- 47.7% of shoppers say Pinterest content inspired holiday gift purchasing
- 67% of shoppers say they purchased a gift they saw on social media
If these statistics don’t say that social media interaction is important for holiday shopping, then I don’t know what does. It is clear that consumers spend time on social media and get gift ideas from it. Many of them make purchases based on social media content. What more do you need to plan a holiday social media strategy?