Data Finds Holiday Shoppers Feeling Merry and Prone to Impulsive Buys When Met With AI
Coveo’s 2024 holiday consumer report, “Gift or Grinch? Unwrapping This Season’s Shopper Spending Plans,” which aimed to uncover consumer sentiment toward the upcoming holiday shopping season, found survey respondents in merry spirits as they plan for the 2024 holidays — willing to make adjustments throughout the year to support gifting budgets.
The company’s research was conducted in July 2024 and surveyed 4,000 U.S. and U.K. adult consumers in partnership with Arlington Research.
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Ongoing financial stress remains a factor for consumers with 59 percent of survey respondents reporting plans to cut everyday budgets to prioritize gifting budgets, which many (76 percent) plan to maintain or increase compared to budgets set in 2023. More than two-thirds of consumers also said they will shop during Black Friday and Cyber Monday with at least one retailer to “take advantage of holiday shopping peaks” with electronics as the fashion top categories and big box stores and department stores as top retailers.
Still, sentiment for the holiday season is relatively positive.
Lisa Grayston, general manager of commerce at Coveo, said that clear standouts of the report are shopper enthusiasm and receptivity to persuasion, “signaling that retailers have a major opportunity to capture a greater share of consumer spending during the upcoming shopping peak. Consumers are going into the holiday shopping season ready to be inspired, which opens doors for retailers to lean on their technological prowess to convince and convert.”
While 45 percent of U.S. shoppers and 39 percent of U.K. shoppers said that they “enjoy the thrill” of finding the perfect gift, almost 20 percent said that they dread the process of gift shopping, citing the time and expense required. To help them this year, a third of online shoppers said they are starting to utilize Gen AI, jumping to 44 percent of Millennials.
Sheerine Reid, senior director of commerce marketing at Coveo, pointed to findings in the report including that 61 percent of shoppers can be inspired to find the perfect gift when provided easy-to-navigate gift categories, such as “top gifts for teens” or “bestselling fragrances,” etc. when shopping online to confirm consumers’ eagerness to be inspired and discover products that match their preferences, making categories with seasonal trends or gifting opportunities especially appealing.
At the same time, she said that “AI definitely plays a role in driving shopping inspiration, especially for the 44 percent of Millennial-age respondents who said they are open to AI-guided gift shopping,” Reid said. “AI also enables personalized product discovery and providing tailored recommendations through rich content. Specialized gift guides can help shoppers find the perfect items for everyone on their list, but with AI, you can go even further and start to understand a shopper’s intent, much like an in-store associate would.”
According to the report, these enthusiastic holiday shoppers are also likely to be swayed to make unplanned purchases this holiday season with 85 percent of respondents reporting that they are “prone to impulse buys online, especially fashion, shoes and apparel.” Ninety percent also said they are “open to being persuaded to add items to their existing online order” — which the authors of the report said is a key moment of potential for retailers to employ AI-driven strategies to enhance how they cater to shoppers’ preferences in real-time.
“With consumers just a browser window away from another option, AI-driven personalization becomes essential to engage shoppers with relevant recommendations, helping them complete their shopping journey quickly and efficiently while encouraging spontaneous purchases,” Reid said. “By leveraging AI, retailers can offer tailored recommendations that not only help shoppers find what they’re actively searching for but also introduce relevant impulse buys. This level of hyper-personalization at scale is only achievable with AI, enabling retailers to curate suggestions that fit each shopper’s unique preferences and needs — in real-time during their shopping session.”
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