Unwrapping Online Shopping Trends from Last Christmas
Christmas is big business for retailers. In fact, the average time spent on retailer websites each month is 17% higher in the final quarter of the year than it is in the first three. With so much happening in the build up to December 25th, it can be hard to isolate new behaviours from consumers and see which brands are cutting through the festive noise.
Happily, we’ve used our award-winning online audience measurement tool, Ipsos iris, to look back at last Christmas to identify three key themes that might give us some clues as to what lies ahead for the Christmas yet to come…
+17% increase in average time spent online during the festive season
The Gift of Loyalty
One of the big winners online last Christmas was Marks and Spencer with their ‘12 Days of M&S’ digital advent calendar campaign.
Members of M&S’s loyalty scheme, Sparks, were encouraged to download the M&S app to open a digital door each day for the first 12 days of December. In November, the app had an average daily audience of 1.4 million people, but this rocketed to 5.0 million during the promotion period.
The campaign was particularly successful amongst younger audiences. Average daily users aged 25-34 were up the most (+453% during the 12 days vs the November average) followed by 15-24 year olds (+436%).
John Lewis also staged ‘Christmas Members’ Week’ for customers who are part of its ‘My John Lewis’ scheme. This ran from 6th to the 12th December and contributed to a 62% increase in audience for the John Lewis site and app on 8th December, compared to the daily average for the rest of the month.
Both promotions demonstrated how brands can leverage their membership schemes to stand out from the crowd and drive sizeable engagement online.
Days are Getting Longer
While many believe the Summer solstice marks the longest day of the year, that accolade should surely belong to Black Friday, which seems to span a longer time period with each passing year.
Amazon actually saw more time spent on its app on Saturday 18th November – a full six days before Black Friday – as it kicked off its sales activity a full week early.
Whilst cumulatively the activity around Black Friday is the biggest period of the year for Amazon, its Prime Day event in July and Big Deals Day in October drive the biggest single-day engagement for the UK’s biggest online retailer.
Elsewhere, Boots saw a strong surge in time spent on its website on the 23rd December, as it launched its Boxing Day sale early online. The launch performed particularly well amongst men aged 15-34, who accounted for 5% of time spent on the Boots site for the whole of December, but 11% on the 23rd. – three guesses why men were scrambling to Boots 2 days before Christmas…
Women aged 55+ also saw their share of time spent increase from 31%, across December, to 37% on the first day of the sale. Starting their sales early proved successful for both Amazon and Boots, as both brands saw the opening day of their events drive peaks in engagement.
+6% increase in share of time on Boots' website on 23rd December amongst men aged 15-34
A Festive Food Fight
Christmas is a very important time for supermarket brands: time spent on the grocery category was up by 36% last December compared to the monthly average for the rest of the year.
Tesco saw the highest peaks in engagement, but these weren’t actually driven by people perusing pigs in blankets and prosecco, but instead were people vying for sought-after Christmas food delivery slots.
You can see a surge in engagement in our data on 7th November, when the early-access delivery slots for Christmas deliveries were released. This was driven particularly by women aged 35+, who accounted for 71% of all time spent on Tesco’s site and app that day, up from an average of 58% for the month.
Another surge in engagement took place on 14th December, around the deadline for deliveries of Tesco’s festive food range.
In Summary
Last Christmas revealed that loyalty programs are an effective way for brands to stand out amidst the holiday buzz, attracting shoppers with exclusive deals and content. At the same time, consumers are showing a willingness to engage with sales periods that extend beyond a single day, as seen with the evolving concept of Black Friday.
The holiday season also highlights the intense competition for online grocery delivery slots, indicating the increasing importance of convenience for consumers during this busy time. This also suggests that retailers who prioritise easy-to-use online platforms and offer attractive delivery options are likely to have an edge.
In the midst of all the holiday excitement, it's therefore clear that loyalty programs, extended sales periods, and convenient online shopping experiences are key in winning over consumers. So, as retailers prepare to distinguish themselves from their competitors, let's see how they rise to the occassion this festive season...
Source: Ipsos Iris Online Audience Measurement Service, 2023-2024, All aged 15+ using PC/laptop, smartphone or tablet device(s), UK only.
Technical Note: Ipsos iris is the UKOM endorsed service for the measurement of audiences of online content. We passively track the online behaviour of a single-source panel of over 10,000 UK adults, who install software across their devices (a combination of smartphones, tablets, PCs and laptops). The panel is recruited to be representative of the internet population demographically, geographically and by device type use. This passive data is fused with anonymous, device-level data derived from site-centric tags on hundreds of the biggest sites and apps to create a synthetic panel of around 1 million synthetic panellists. More detail on the methodology can be found here.
