Christmas shopping season is just around the corner. What will help retailers score points this year and what is important to consumers when it comes to their Christmas shopping? The new Trend Check Handel Vol. 12 from ECC KÖLN reveals the most important trends: consumer sentiment is improving, people are saving less and buying more online. However, brick-and-mortar stores are the number one place to go for inspiration (49%), followed by online marketplaces (41%) and online shops of retailers (32%) or manufacturers (23%). For the younger generations, social media plays a particularly important role in the search for inspiration, and special services during Christmas shopping (e.g. having products packaged or customised) are also especially important to younger people. In addition, the majority of consumers value free delivery and returns when purchasing gifts.
With the ‘Trend Check Handel’, the ECC KÖLN, a subsidiary brand of the Institut für Handelsforschung (IFH KÖLN) in cooperation with Salesforce, regularly analyses the sentiment regarding consumer behaviour in Germany on a representative basis. For the present eleventh wave of the survey, around 500 consumers were interviewed in a representative online survey in October 2020 about their shopping behaviour in the context of current crises, consumer trends and consumer sentiment. In addition, the focus of the current survey was on the promotion days Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this year's Christmas business and economic developments in the retail sector.
The results show: fewer savings around Christmas. As consumer restraint currently wanes, people are saving less overall for Christmas than in previous years. Only a quarter of consumers say they want to save on Christmas gifts – in 2022, it was still a third. If they do save, it is mostly on Christmas markets (33%, 2023: 37%, 2022: 46%). Nevertheless, more than one in two (56%) say they are comparing prices more this year than in previous years: price increases have a direct influence on Christmas consumer behaviour (59%).
Christmas shopping services are particularly in demand among younger generations. The most popular services include the option of having products gift-wrapped (42%, 18-29 year olds: 56%), the ability to filter by occasion in online shops (37%, 18-29 year olds 29-year-olds) and personalisation in the form of greeting cards (30%, 18- to 29-year-olds: 48%) or on the product itself (27%, 18- to 29-year-olds: 46%). Pre-assembled gift baskets are also well received by 18- to 29-year-olds (44%).
When buying gifts, the majority of consumers value free delivery (74%) and returns (59%). Only among 18- to 29-year-olds is the focus clearly on low-priced deals (76%). Accordingly, low-priced marketplaces with goods from Asia also play a role in the Christmas shopping season: 12 per cent of those surveyed plan to buy Christmas gifts via Temu and the like, and among younger people the figure is just under one fifth (19%).
