How Mobile and Micromoments are Changing Holiday Shopping
Oct 25, 2015 
2 mins 
In 2015 shopping moments will replace the shopping marathons for most consumers. Rather than battle lines and other shoppers for hours consumers are opting for their phones in the moment of need throughout the day all season long.
In fact, more than half (54%) of holiday shoppers say that they plan to shop on their smartphones in spare moments throughout the day like walking or commuting.1
Instead of planning the shopping marathon route on Black Friday people are turning to their phone for gifting.
This type of shopping has led to shorter, more purposeful mobile shopping sessions. In fact, while shoppers now spend 7% less time in each mobile session, 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.3
The Rise of Mobile
Whether you are measuring sales online or offline mobile is changing the retail game.
People are increasingly using their phones to research and buy products in stores. More than half (52%) of shoppers plan to use a smartphone for holiday shopping this year before they visit a store, and a whopping 82% of smartphone users will consult their phone while in a store.7 People are searching 37% more inside department stores than they were last year.8
Sundays are no longer just the days of the NFL but are the biggest shopping days on mobile devices.
Sunday is consistently the most popular day for shopping on smartphones – on average, mobile shopping searches are 18% higher on Sundays than the rest of the week.10
Video Gift Guides
Consumers are watching millions of hours of video related to shopping, fashion and purchasing. The advent of unboxing videos helps people plan their purchases.
In 2015 alone, people in the U.S. have watched 60M hours of unboxing videos on YouTube, totalling 1.1B views.13 Our research shows YouTube has become an important part of the purchase process for consumer electronics – a surprising 64% of consumer electronics shoppers watch consumer electronics videos on YouTube one week before they purchase and 65% do so the week after they purchase.14
Source: Inside AdWords: 2015 Holiday Trends – Shopping Moments Are Replacing Shopping Marathons
