FREE SHIPPING STILL #1 FOR ONLINE SHOPPERS

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, but there are still a few weeks of holiday shopping left on the calendar. Lab42 took a deeper dive into the mindset of 500 holiday shoppers to see how they are planning on shopping and how much they’re planning on spending.When it comes to shopping online, free shipping is the most popular incentive for online holiday shoppers, with 40 percent saying it’s the best way to get them to purchase online.

Women are more likely than men to view free shipping as the best incentive for online shopping (42% vs. 37%). The second best incentive is price discounts (26%), followed by previous positive experiences with the brand (18%).Respondents were also asked about their holiday spending habits for 2014 compared to 2013. Although forty-seven percent said they plan to spend more on gifts this year, men were far more likely than women to say they were going to increase their spending (55% men vs. 39% women).

Forty-one percent plan to spend about the same as last year, with women having a slight edge over men in this category (44% women vs. 39% men). Twelve percent anticipate spending less this year, with women being significantly more likely to curb their spending (17% of women vs. 6% of men).Differences between men and women were also apparent when it came to budgeting and shopping for themselves during the holiday seasons. Seventy-one percent of respondents said they will buy items for themselves during the holiday shopping season, and men were far more likely than women to do so (80% of men vs. 62% of women).

Nearly six in ten shoppers set overall budgets for holiday shopping, but women were slightly more likely than men to do so (63% of women vs. 56% of men), and women were also more likely to set budgets when buying items for themselves (64% of women vs. 58% of men).When asked about their shopping habits this year, 91 percent of those surveyed will shop online this holiday season. Among the online shoppers, 53 percent will shop online more this year compared to last year. Forty-five percent said their online shopping habits would remain the same, while just 2 percent said they would shop online less this year.

The study also uncovered the following key findings:

• Retailers’ websites are the number one way shoppers research gifts

• Thirty-seven percent of respondents will use social networks to research gifts

• Holiday spending breakdown of how much consumers plan to spend this year:

  • Less than $100: 5%

  • $100-$399: 32%

  • $400-$699: 29%

  • $700-$999: 14%

  • $1000 or more: 17%

  • I don’t know: 3%