Royal Mail has released the findings of its annual Delivery Matters report, which reveals that almost half of festive shoppers do most or all of their shopping online. Furthermore, UK festive online shopping spend for 2018 was up 11% year-on-year.
The independent Delivery Matters study provides insights into consumer attitudes and behaviors toward e-commerce and fulfilment.
The report also revealed that three quarters of online shoppers start making Christmas purchases in November, but 5% leave it to the week before 25 December. Online shoppers’ most popular purchases are clothes (56%), books (44%), toys (44%), toiletries/make-up (39%) and CDs/DVDs/records/computer games (36%). A third (33%) of festive online shoppers bought more gifts online in 2018 than 2017.
The main reasons people choose to shop online at Christmas are convenience-related, including being able to shop from the comfort of their home, the ability to shop any time of the day and the ease of comparing prices.
Around one in ten online shoppers returned items last Christmas, with women being twice as likely to make Christmas returns than men.
The report is available to download here: www.royalmail.com/deliverymatters
