Multichannel shoppers said they spent an average of 39 percent more than single-channel shoppers in the 2002 holiday season, according to a survey released yesterday by marketing technology and services provider DoubleClick Inc.
Moreover, triple-channel shoppers reported spending 68 percent more than single-channel shoppers, the study said.
Though bricks-and-mortar retail remained the dominant shopping channel by far this holiday season, it was reportedly down from a year ago. Eighty-seven percent of respondents to the survey of 1,000 consumers said they shopped retail in the 2002 holiday season compared with 92 percent in 2001.
Meanwhile, 64 percent said they shopped or browsed the Internet, compared with 61 percent in 2001, DoubleClick reported.
Also, 10 percent said they holiday-shopped online exclusively, up from 6 percent in 2001. The percentage of respondents who said they shopped exclusively in retail stores dropped from 36 percent in 2001 to 33 percent in 2002.
And 43 percent of multichannel shoppers said they spent more online in 2002 than in 2001, and 28 percent said they spent the same.
Fifty-nine percent of multichannel shoppers said they planned to browse more in 2003, and 45 percent said they expect to buy more online in 2003.
However, the percentage of respondents who said they browsed and bought in more than one channel dropped slightly from 58 percent in 2001 to 56 percent in 2002, DoubleClick said.
In other findings, half the multichannel shoppers reported that they had input catalog codes and one-third input e-mail promotional codes when shopping online.
“The results of this study underscore the degree to which consumers are browsing and buying in a multitude of channels,” Scott Knoll, general manager and vice president of marketer solutions, DoubleClick, said in a statement. “Marketers must carefully plan and manage their communication with consumers across the multitude of channels, as well as put in place tools to measure the results of that communication across and within each channel.”
