Two-thirds of European consumers intended to do their holiday shopping online in 2015, with the majority planning to undertake this activity in the month of December. In addition, 53 per cent said they were planning to make gift purchases using a mobile device. That’s according to research by Akamai Technologies, with 3,621 consumers across the UK, Sweden, Italy, Spain and France. Eighty seven per cent were looking to conduct online research before making an in-store purchase. While 85 per cent stated a preference for using a desktop or laptop computer to make online purchases, 61 per cent said they would use their mobile devices to compare prices, read reviews or scan coupon/payment codes when in-store. A further 73 per cent of shoppers favoured the convenience of their tablet device, with 58 per cent going on to say it was the device they most frequently used when browsing and shopping online.

At the same time, however, 84 per cent still prefer to use their desktop/laptop device, stating that retail sites were easier to navigate (57 per cent), web pages loaded faster (38 per cent) and offered full access to all required information (37 per cent). “Today’s connected consumers are going online more frequently and demand a continuous shopping experience, transitioning with ease from one device to another depending on whether they are at home, in-store, or on-the go, and which shopping task they are undertaking at that moment in time,” says Enrique Duvos, Director, Product Marketing & Enablement EMEA, Akamai Technologies.“To meet today’s customers’ expectations, alongside being prepared to scale for peak traffic, these findings confirm that retailers need to ensure digital experiences are optimised for a wide variety of user endpoints, while providing improvements in key areas of the mobile shopping process, such as easier navigation and viewing, faster load times, and simpler checkout.”

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