The fight for the consumer’s holiday dollar has shifted back to the brick-and-mortar battlefield.
With the passage of Free Shipping Day on Dec. 16, consumers are heading back to stores. While often equipped with discount information and coupons procured online, they have less confidence in their ability to get the gifts they still need from Internet and mobile sources. Even if they are willing to take a risk on their computers’ and smartphones’ ability to corral the merchandise they want, their free shipment options narrowed with the day now named in honor of the courtesy.
Not surprisingly, data from The NPD Group, the Port Washington, N.Y.-based research firm, revealed increases in both conversion for brick-and-mortar stores and a decline in the online share of buying visits in the week ended Monday. Overall brick-and-mortar conversion grew to 68.1 percent from 67.3 percent in the prior week, while the online share of buying visits fell to 16.4 percent from 17 percent. The percentage of U.S. consumers who shopped at stores last week increased to 68 percent from 67 percent during the prior week.
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“This is the second best week for brick-and-mortar conversion since we began tracking it for the holiday season,” commented Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst for NPD. “It’s a good sign that even during the latter part of the shopping lull, consumers are back in the stores and buying again.”
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In a breakdown of shopping visits, conversion rates and online share of buying visits according to distribution channels provided to WWD by NPD, brick-and-mortar visits and conversion rates were up, and the online share of buying visits down, at department stores, apparel specialty stores, mass merchants and national chains.
In descending order of the improvement in brick-and-mortar shopping visits in comparison to the prior week, the results were as follows:
• National chains: B&M shopping visits rose 13.6 percent, with B&M conversion up to 54.7 percent from 53.5 percent in the prior week, and the online share of buying visits down to 11.5 percent from 14.9 percent.
• Department stores: B&M shopping visits up 11.6 percent, with B&M conversion up to 46 percent from 44.7 percent, and the online share of buying visits down to 10.7 percent from 12.5 percent.
• Apparel specialty stores: B&M shopping visits up 5 percent, with B&M conversion up to 44.1 percent from 40 percent, and the online share of buying visits down to 25.6 percent from 28.3 percent.
• Mass merchants: B&M shopping visits up 3.5 percent, with B&M conversion up to 73 percent from 72 percent, and the online share of buying visits down to 4.1 percent from 4.8 percent.
Because they carry food, mass merchants’ conversion rates tend to outpace those of other retailers.
The highest overall conversion rate registered since NPD began tracking conversion numbers this year was the 69.1 percent recorded during the week ended Nov. 21.
The more than 4 percent jump in conversion at apparel specialty stores gave it among the largest increases by store types last week, joining categories including footwear specialty (up 10 points), office supply stores (up 9 points) and sporting goods stores (up 6 points).
Footwear, Cohen noted, “is building a trend of becoming a gift item for holiday. Think shearling boots.”
The move back into physical stores is hardly a sign of trouble for e-commerce, an industry which tends to view Free Shipping Day as the end of its holiday surge. With four billion-dollar days in the week ended Dec. 18 alone, and a total of 10 since Nov. 1, U.S. online holiday sales hit $31.97 billion, 15 percent above the $27.81 billion registered during the corresponding days of 2010 and already above the $30.81 billion spent between Nov. 1 and Dec. 26 last year, according to ComScore, the digital tracking organization. Last year’s total online holiday take was $32.59 billion, a number that’s probably already been surpassed.
“With only a few more days until Christmas, the preponderance of Americans’ late-season holiday shopping will shift to brick-and-mortar retail, although the procrastinators among us will still be able to take advantage of expedited shipping and buy online up to and including the day before Christmas Eve with the guarantee of having their gifts delivered in time for the holiday,” said Gian Fulgoni, ComScore’s chairman, who expects another “$5 billion or $6 billion” in online spending before the end of the month.