77% of customers are planning to buy more Christmas gifts in local shops

• Online shopping: a first for 6% of customers due to Covid19
• 64% of customers will spend more than 100 euros in Christmas gifts
• Online shopping via the smartphone grew from 35% to 51% in just one year
• Almost 60% of customers apply specific hygiene rules when receiving a delivery

People are looking for Christmas gifts in local stores. The pandemic resulted in financial trouble for many local shops and the hotel and catering industry, but according to a survey conducted by Orange Belgium, people are planning on helping local businesses in big numbers to get back on track. 77% say that they will purchase more Christmas gifts at local stores.

1 customer out of 3 started Christmas shopping before December

The holidays are getting closer, and it is time for customers to put presents under the tree. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Christmas shopping drastically changed this year. However, still a majority of 78% of customers are looking for gifts. 36% already started looking for gifts before the month of December, and therefore did their research online. A big majority is ready to spend a budget of more than 100 euro on their presents. 29% are buying gifts for a total between 100 to 200 euros. 35% are planning to spend over 200 euro. This means that almost 2 out of 3 customers (64%) are at least spending 100 euro on presents for their loved ones. Besides Christmas shopping, the Covid19 pandemic gave a major boost to ecommerce, with 32% of customers now stating they spend more than 100 euro each month in online shopping (19% before the Covid19 outbreak). Interesting fact: almost 60% of customers state they apply specific hygiene rules when receiving a delivery.

The study of Orange Belgium conducted with more than 2.000 persons also revealed that customers do tend to increasingly buy locally and keep sustainability in mind. Almost 8 out of 10 customers (77%) are making an effort to buy more gifts from Belgian brands and stores. Consumers are also increasingly concerned about sustainability, with 64%of them claiming they now take into account the durability of the item they buy.

The boom of online shopping through the smartphone

The most sought-after products online are clothes (56%), electronics (49%) and shoes (33%). The smartphone is the most popular device to do our online shopping: more than half of the customers (51%) tend to shop most with their mobile phone. A big chunk of 42% mostly uses a desktop. The rest (7%) prefers a tablet to scroll the online stores. Online shopping gains in popularity every day, with more than 1 in 3 (35%) customers admitting that they are shopping online more regularly since the beginning of the Covid19 pandemic. 6% of them even found their way to online shopping for the first time during the pandemic. Customers now entered an era where the smartphone is their most important tool for online shopping, as it’s reliable, fast and easy. A big step forward as last year only 35% stated that they ever purchased articles online via their phones. It shows how smartphones have developed through the years and how important it is for businesses to have a mobile-friendly webshop.

Christophe Dujardin, Chief Consumer Officer of Orange Belgium, adds: “The increasing importance of eshopping is a trend we’ve been observing for several years but it clearly received a major boost due to the Covid19 pandemic. Another interesting trend we noticed via our eshop, is the fact that an increasing share of customers actually seize the opportunity of the Black Friday to already buy some of their Christmas gifts, which allows them to enjoy interesting price reductions but also to ensure they’ll be ready for the end of year.”