BarnRaisers

Last year, Deloitte reported on how Americans find deals during the holiday season. They said:

• 40% turn to print
• 29% look at flyers
• 27% check out websites focused on holiday deals
• 24% go to retailers’ websites

Although they did point out a number of retailers’ website had Facebook and Twitter pages, Deloitte didn’t mention social media.  The number weren’t large enough to merit a statistical reference.

This year, here are 5 statistics on Black Friday that might change their mind. There were:

1. 145,000,000 Black Friday deals listed on Facebook
2. 59,300,000 blog posts written about Black Friday
3. 43,900,00 videos about Black Friday posted on YouTube
4. 8,670,000 tweets about Black Friday deals on Twitter
5. 3,120,000 people posted Black Friday questions on LinkedIn groups

Source: Google

These are the absolute numbers and it’s just the beginning of holiday shopping season. They do not include the number of passalongs, shares, e-mails to a friend, Likes and Re-tweets that most likely accompany each listing making these numbers much bigger.

Here are two graphs from Google Trends.  They show how search for Black Friday information and social media has rapidly accelerated.  But social media has increased at an even faster rate.  In fact, interest in social media is almost double what it was last year at this time (highlighted by the two Christmas stars).  Note the little spike on the Social Media Graph around Black Friday.

• 90% of all purchase decisions begin online
• 75% of consumers shop online before they buy offline
• 85% are looking for an independent review
• 78% of people trust the recommendations of other people
• They have an average of 130 friends online
• 14% of people trust advertising

Source: comScore, eMarketer, Nielsen

Do you think someone should tell the people at Deloitte?

In a year where we’re more interested in the best deals and with more reason to be, here’s a snapshot of where we’ll look this holiday season before we hit the stores (according to Deloitte)

40% turn to print

29% look at flyers

27% check out websites focused on holiday deals

24% go to retailers’ websites

Newspapers, magazines and flyers are still the most popular.  The internet is not far behind and growing faster while print and flyers slowly decline.  This means we’ll do more shopping online than ever before we buy offline.

Many x-mas info and retailers sites now have connections to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, MomsLikeMe , TriangleMom2Mom and MyBlackFridayDeals.  This means we’ll go to stores with more recommendations, reviews and advice from others and we’ll be more certain about what we’re going to buy. We’ll feel more satisfied about having made smarter decisions. We’ll spend less time in crowded stores.

This means this holiday season the two biggest purchase drivers, word on mouth and content on the web, will be put to use more often and in more measurable ways.  Kasey Lobaugh, a principle at Deloitte’s retail practice says “if you send out a URL on Twitter, you know how many people clicked on that URL.”

And it costs a whole lot less than print and flyers for manufacturers to know a lot more about what it takes to find advocates for their brands.

This means we should expect to see manufacturers offer great deals that we actually want for many more Xmas’  because it’s more affordable and consumers will reward the ones who do a good job at it with more business.

Happy shopping this holiday season where ever your journey, online or offline, takes you.