Holiday Shopping...A Pleasant Experience?

As a research company, we here at iPerceptions have comprehensively covered the statistical impact that tough economic times have had on online customer sentiment. We’ve witnessed declining task completion rates in web-wide 4Q studies, and we’ve seen satisfaction scores take a turn for the worse (predictably, the financial sector has been predominantly affected). But those of us in the web space often fail to look beyond the glass – after all, some people still do shop in a brick and mortar environment.

The catalyst for this post was a weekend trip I took to Boston. My buddy suggested that we head downtown to grab some lunch and do some shopping (quite a manly afternoon, wouldn’t you say?), but I had my reservations (chief of which was not wanting to subject myself to the madness that has come to define weekend shopping in the weeks preceding Christmas). My friend was persistent though, and he ultimately convinced me to change my stance by repeatedly referencing the substantial discounts which were sure to greet us at every turn.

After having visited about 3 stores, it became very clear that although rampant discounts were in full affect, chaotic holiday shopping certainly was not. In fact, I would go so far as to say that there were fewer people shopping on Saturday the 13th of December 2008 than you might expect on any other Saturday throughout the entire year. One could see that this was no ordinary weekend though because stores were visibly over-staffed. Perhaps the anemic foot traffic has something to do with the fact that a large majority of last-minute shoppers are intending to shop online this year (according to NRF’s 2008 Holiday Consumer Intentions Survey, this figure is 40.2%, which represents an increase of over 5% versus last year’s figures), but the impact that the economy has had on consumer confidence, which undoubtedly affects people’s propensity to shop, cannot be overlooked.

Despite my glee of not having to deal with hoards of crowds and over-zealous sales people, I could not help but feel bad for the stores themselves. A sub-par December is to the retail sector what a snowless New Year’s is to a ski resort: a ticket into the fiscal red zone.

This experience is purely anecdotal but I think that personal testimonials are sometimes a good compliment to statistical findings. My hope is that the retail sector will be able to ride out this storm by increasing the value of their existing customers, while at the same time finding imaginative and resourceful ways to gain new ones.

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