Consumer Sentiment In The 2014

Holiday Season

Anjali Lai, Community Manager

Kristopher Arcand, Community ManagerDecember 19, 2014

© 2014 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Consumer sentiment in the 2014 holiday season

1 Source: Black Friday Fatigue? Thanksgiving Weekend Sales Slide 11 Percent

Forrester Research tracked consumers’ candid, unprompted commentary about Black Friday and Cyber Monday by tuning into relevant online conversations posted across a variety of sites from early November 2014. Forrester also leveraged its ConsumerVoices Market Research Online Community (MROC) to understand members’ shopping plans in advance of the traditionally vibrant weekend that kicks off the holiday season.

Leading up to Black Friday 2014, consumers learned that retailers would be opening their doors earlier than ever — with evening hours on Thanksgiving Day itself. As the week kicked off, early Black Friday deals started appearing, even before families had started purchasing food for Thanksgiving dinner! Ultimately, however, sales during the Thanksgiving weekend were down compared with years past — despite the fact that the extension of these sales adding shopping days to a shorter holiday shopping season.1

We can now take a look at consumer conversation leading up to the Thanksgiving weekend to understand the sentiment associated with this lower turnout for holiday shopping.

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Cyber Monday is less stressful, more convenient

Source: Forrester’s ConsumerVoices Market Research Online Community, Q4 2014 (US)

When looking ahead to the Thanksgiving weekend, consumers associate Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day sales with chaos and encroachments on family time. By contrast, consumers take pleasure in the prospect of Cyber Monday and the deals they may find — and are more willing to browse at least, even if they don’t buy.

Instead of so heavily promoting in-store Black Friday sales in advance of Thanksgiving, consider

focusing on Cyber Monday sales — including on Thanksgiving, when consumers can take advantage of

a deal and return to their families a few minutes later.!

“I plan on shopping Cyber

Monday because I can do it from

home and often stores offer free

shipping.” Female, 35-39

“I really enjoy the sales online

and prefer them to the pushy

people at the stores.” Male, 55-

59

“I refuse to shop during that

time. Thanksgiving is for

spending quality time with

family and friends. That's what I

intend to do!” Female, 45-49

Black Friday/Thanksgiving Cyber Monday

“I do most of my shopping

online now … Why be involved

in mass chaos when you can sit

home in your PJs and shop

online?” Female, 65+

© 2014 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Black Friday Cyber Monday

Mentions:The number of times an

instance of insight-rich

text about Black Friday

appears online

Sentiment:A score representing how

positive or negative

commentary is, where -100% is

negative, 0 is neutral, and 100%

is positive

Mentions:The number of times an

instance of insight-rich

text about Cyber Monday

appears online

Sentiment:A score representing how

positive or negative

commentary is, where -100%

is negative, 0 is neutral, and

100% is positive

2,153,100 34% 567,625 67%

Source: NetBase aggregated social listening data, November 2014 to December 2014 (Global)

Consumer-generated conversation about Black Friday and Cyber Monday:

Crowds, shopping frenzy, and Thanksgiving Day retail hours dominated online conversation about Black Friday throughout November. By comparison, posts about Cyber Monday started much closer to the holiday, were fewer in number, and were more positive as consumers looked forward to the day — and eventually posted about their shopping successes.

Black Friday conversation is loud, less positive

© 2014 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

By creating early mobile moments, retailers can sync with shoppers’ natural holiday behavior

“A number of retailers have invested heavily in omnichannel efforts to date, and this

holiday season will be a good opportunity to stress-test such efforts. In particular,

we encourage retailers to ship from store where possible and even to encourage

shoppers to pick up items in stores.”

Sucharita Mulpuru

Despite a shorter holiday season, Forrester predicts 13% growth for November

and December 2014 compared with the same months in 2013, thanks to

consumers’ growing use of online shopping and mobile shopping tools.

With plenty of time to go and natural shopping patterns shifting, retailers should

continue to promote online and mobile shopping with targeted deals, focusing

more on relevance than the number of emails; they should then leverage the

value of in-store pickup (or purchase) as shipping timelines become less

realistic.

To learn more, see the November 3, 2014, US Online Holiday Forecast, 2014

Forrester report.

© 2014 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

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Why are they doing it? Why are they saying it?

Technographics Social Listening Data

What are they talking about? How are they

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