According to October 2015 research from Médiamétrie//NetRatings and the Fédération du E-commerce et de la Vente à Distance (FEVAD), 68% of internet users in France plan to purchase Christmas gifts digitally this year, with desktop PCs the most popular device for doing so.
Smartphones and tablets were significantly less common for making purchases, though many respondents did plan to use mobile channels for Christmas gift research.
Over the past three years, digital buyers in France have been putting off those digital purchases longer, regardless of device used. In, 2013 58% of respondents said they planned to make Christmas gift purchases before December 1, while only 39% answered the same in 2015.
Purchase plans held fairly steady for the first half of December 1, with 37% identifying that time period as the one in which they planned to purchase in 2013, and 38% doing so in 2015. A slight uptick from 2014 to 2015 can be found in the time period after December 15, from 5% to 7%.
Cultural products, or traditional media, lead the way in terms of categories digital buyers plan to purchase solely online, at 41%; consumer products follows, with 31%.
Meanwhile, categories like toys and games prove to be popular across purchase channels—29% of respondents said they would purchase only via digital, 16% said both digital and in-store, and 15% said they would only purchase in-store. Jewelry, luggage and leather, food products, and flowers and plants ranked lowest when it came to digital-only purchasing, which suggests that if digital is good for consumer goods like DVDs, video game systems and the like, consumers still want to lay eyes on a number of categories. While there's no doubt that buyers rely heavily on digital purchasing, sometimes, brick-and-mortar stores are still king.