Pre-Holiday Experience With Retailers Key To Consumers’ Buying Decisions

With Christmas approaching, brands should do their best to charm consumers both in-store and on the Internet in the run-up to the festive season, as shoppers’ pre-holiday experience will be crucial to their choice of brand and a key driver of their shopping decisions.

I came to this conclusion after reading research conducted by YouGov on behalf of relationship marketing expert Emailvision, which showed that 53% of Britons will decide where to shop for Christmas presents based on their previous experiences with retailers. This suggests that to give a push to the festive sales, retailers need to focus not only on making lucrative offers but on improving customer experience as well, Emailvision’s product marketing director Henry Smith claimed.

Out of the 2,001 people interviewed, full-time employees are the most cautious when choosing a brand, with 56% of them saying that their pre-holiday experience will be a major consideration before rushing to the high street or visiting an online retail website to do the Christmas shopping, against 40% of those without a job.

It’s also interesting to see a gender breakdown of people’s pre-holiday moods, which showed that women’s shopping habits are more strongly linked to previous interactions with retailers, as nearly three in five of them claimed that they would turn to the retailer that pleased them most throughout the year, compared to just 48% of male counterparts.

The results point to the conclusion that retailers need to make sure that they offer a tailored customer experience for shoppers all the time and to set up lasting relationships with customers by gathering enough information about them, their predilections and preferences, the researchers said.