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£1.5bn to be made by online retailers if they embrace personalisation this Christmas, finds Qubit study

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By Jennifer Faull | Deputy Editor

July 25, 2014 | 2 min read

Online retailers missed out on £1.5bn during the Chirstmas shopping period last year as they didn’t have a strategy focused on the user journey and when to push items on sale, according to a new study from Qubit.

The research, which analysed data from more than 20 million website visitors and approximately 1.5 million conversions, noted a number of trends around when consumers are browsing and how their behaviours change according to demographic and location.

It found that despite retailers experiencing a massive spike in visitors to websites between 24 – 26 December they are failing to convert, with Qubit seeing a three per cent fall in conversion rate.

“Engaging and informing customers with editorial content, rather than up-selling or cross-selling, would then be the wisest strategy over these days,” the research suggested.

Furthermore, a third of all high-end, luxury fashion purchases occur after Christmas day.

More than 50 per cent of men’s fashion purchases in December happen in the first 10 days of the month while 50 per cent of purchases on sites which sell gifts for men occur in the first two weeks of December.

Similarly, women’s fashion conversion rates are higher before Christmas Day but peak on Christmas Eve at around 5.5 per cent compared to an average 3.2 per cent for the rest of the month. It also has a smaller peak in the first week of December at an average 4.3 per cent.

Analysing the data geographically Londoners were found to do the highest percentage of Christmas shopping early in the month, with data showing 60 per cent of conversions occur in the first half of December compared with 42 per cent in the rest of Great Britain.

The most notable change in Christmas shopping habits came from analysis of the channels consumers were using to browse and purchase. Mobile purchases grew by 138 per cent year on year. Just over a quarter (27 per cent) of all online sales were made by using a mobile device while 82 per cent were on tablet.

Overall, tablet conversions grew by 131 per cent compared with the same period last year and smartphone rose by 186 per cent.

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