I love seeing all the Black Friday sales commercials when Thanksgiving rolls around and all the stories of people being trampled as they try to rush into the Walmart for their flat screen TVs. But unfortunately, according to research from Google, those big time "shopping days" like Black Friday and Cyber Monday are on their way out.
Instead, get ready for what Google is calling "Shopping Moments," those times where you're in between tasks or waiting in line for coffee and browsing around online, maybe doing a little bit of shopping. Rather than just a surge of shopping during and around the major holidays, there is a constant interest in shopping all season long. This might seem obvious, but there are some telling facts in here about how we shop now. Apparently, "smartphones’ share of online shopping purchases have gone up 64% over the last year, and 30% of all online shopping purchases now happen on mobile phones" and "61% of shoppers will have already started researching their purchases before Thanksgiving weekend, up 17% from last year." Damn.
Another thing to take into consideration about shopping habits: You are way more likely (18% more likely to be specific) to buy something on a Sunday compared to any other day of the week. Check out this chart. Each one of those spikes represents a Sunday. So while you're hungover, half-watching football as you dick around on your iPad, you'll probably cop something. All of this aside, I cannot fucking wait for the holiday shopping season to start so I have another excuse to spend money on myself. Though, I guess Google is right—being selfish is more or less an all year thing.
