Online Holiday Shopping Continues to Outpace In-Store; CGC May Be the Trick to Stand Out
As online shopping continues to outpace in-store purchases, especially during the holiday shopping season, one tactic to stand out in the online marketplace is to increase the quality and visibility of your customer-generated content, or CGC.
This year, Reuters reported that on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, online sales were up 23%, while in-store sales were down 4-7% over last year. Shoppers continue to shift from brick-and-mortar stores to online shopping for their holiday deals and gifts. A vast majority of those users will turn to CGC in order to make a purchase decision—whether it’s product ratings, reviews, customer-submitted photos or video, Q&A with previous customers, or a combination of any of these—and eCommerce sites without high-quality CGC will likely miss out on purchases as well as shopper loyalty.
In our recent research study, we found that CGC not only influences shoppers’ product decisions while on an eCommerce site, but that shoppers will choose one online store over another based on the quality of each store’s CGC. Moreover, 76% say they will likely decide not to shop at a store that doesn’t provide any customer-generated content.
To help eCommerce teams make the most out of their CGC, we’ve published a one-page guide detailing holiday shopping trends and CGC tips.
- Learn what types of information shoppers are looking for in their CGC.
- Discover what site features are most influential for shoppers choosing between online stores.
- Get 5 actionable tips for effectively utilizing CGC during the holiday shopping season.
Download your free copy now.
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Want to learn more about shopper habits and their CGC preferences? Download The State of Customer-Generated Content eBook to discover research like:
- One-quarter of shoppers seek out negative reviews to help make their purchase decision.
- 41% of shoppers prefer to ask other customers about products over brand experts
- 74% of shoppers will purchase more expensive products if they have higher ratings than similar less-expensive products