The festive shopping season is here but ticking off the Christmas list this year will be less about hitting the brightly lit stores of Oxford Street and more about indulging in a spot of smartphone spending, according to a survey from OpenX and The Harris Poll. In this piece for RetailTechNews, Gavin Stirrat, VP partner services, OpenX, explains why retailers need to look to omnichannel to succeed this festive season. 

While 85% of consumers think they will spend the same or more on gifts as they did last year, most plan to spend more on digital channels than in-store, with millennials expecting to part with 60% of their shopping budgets online. High earners (consumers earning £50,000 or more) are particularly likely to shop on the web, rather than in brick-and-mortar stores.

These are challenging times for traditional retailers, with Coast the latest high street name to go into administration, following the collapse of House of Fraser, and toy store Hamleys reporting losses. So, if they don’t want to be lonely this Christmas, retailers must respond to evolving Christmas shopping habits and adapt advertising approaches to meet consumers where they are, rather than waiting for shoppers to come to them.

TV is all tinsel & no turkey

TV is the advertising channel most associated with Christmas, and a fifth of the £6bn spent on festive promotion is on TV commercials. But content consumption is changing; and the idea of gathering around the TV as the winter nights draw in is almost as old-fashioned as chestnuts roasting on an open fire. One-in-five consumers watch no linear television at all, while almost 90% of those who do try to skip the ad breaks, undermining the power of festive commercials.

Mobile is a Christmas cracker   

Consumers may be watching less traditional TV in the run up to Christmas, but they are more than making up for it in mobile use. The average UK consumer is on their smartphone for at least three hours a day, and close to one-in-four millennials spend over six hours on their devices. This incessant interaction with mobile means festive shopping can take place anywhere, anytime, with a third of consumers now making mobile purchases from their beds at night on a weekly basis. Parents show a particularly strong propensity to buy on mobile and expect to make around a quarter of purchases this way.

Gavin Stirrat, VP Partner Services, OpenX

Omnichannel takes the paper crown

Before retailers shift their entire festive marketing budget from TV commercials and in-store promotions to mobile advertising, we should recognise some shoppers still love the excitement of mince-pie-fuelled Christmas shopping on their local high street. Others will certainly be influenced by the latest John Lewis tear jerker or Aldi’s cute carrot family. Retailers need to understand the combined influence and importance of both online and offline channels, rather than abandoning one in favour of the other.

Even within the online world consumers use different channels and devices for different purposes, with three-quarters researching potential Christmas purchases on desktop or laptop, while only half use a mobile device. Across devices, the most popular reason to go online is to make a purchase (71%), closely followed by price comparison (68%). Retailers should ask themselves not only which channels and devices consumers use, but how these can best be leveraged within the purchase funnel, adjusting their messaging accordingly.

And retailers don’t necessarily need to restrict their digital marketing activities to mobile or desktop. Adoption of new technologies such as Google Home and Alexa has created new opportunities for retail marketers to reach audiences, with 6% of consumers using smart speakers to research Christmas purchases. Forward-thinking retailers can use these less explored, but growing, digital formats to ensure their products make it under the tree on Christmas morning.     

In an increasingly fragmented media environment, retail marketers need effective data-driven omnichannel engagement programmes that meet consumers wherever, whenever, and however they are consuming content or making their festive purchases, online, offline, or anywhere in between.

Christmas shopping habits are changing; so before retailers deck the halls or rock around the Christmas tree they must adapt their festive marketing to evolving consumer behaviour. By adopting an omnichannel strategy that uses data insight to reach the right consumers at the right moment via the most appropriate channel, retailers are more likely to survive the current retail climate and get what they want in their stocking this Christmas.