Almost season's greetings. There are officially 57 shopping days 'til Christmas. That means I have to spend about $12 a day -- or $80 a week -- to equal what the NRF says an average shopper will spend this season ($672 this year versus $649 last year). Given my appetite for retail therapy, I'm likely to boost the average.

But in addition to the question of how much shoppers will spend, an equally interesting question is how will today's multichannel shoppers interact with catalogs, the Web, stores, and TVs to make their holiday purchases? Here's some food for thought:

The Web matters more than ever. Our research keeps telling the same story: Consumers love shopping online. In the US, consumers will spend more than $96 billion online this year, including $12 billion between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm already underway, thanks to the arrival of more than 85 retail email pitches in the past two weeks including a particularly good one from walmart.com (pushing advance orders for the Finding Nemo DVD). If the economic planets remain aligned, this will be a merry online holiday season and perhaps the year US online sales reach the $100-billion milestone.

Catalogs still cut it. In just the past 10 days I have received 23 catalogs (no lie). That's a lot of pages and it's not even November. You'd think this Oregonian would just recycle them. But I'm like a lot of shoppers -- especially Web shoppers -- I browse through them and mark pages for subsequent surgical strikes at sites like Crate and Barrel (niece and nephew) and White Flower Farms (mom). Of the dozen catalog orders I placed last holiday, I only picked up the phone twice, and I probably won't use it at all this year. The role of the catalog is changing fast -- pay close attention to how you and your customers use them this season.

Stores live or die by experience. With all this Web and catalog shopping, you'd think this girl had no time for stores. But you're wrong! I'm quite the regular at a handful of stores in Portland. Here's why. Nothing beats a good trip down 23rd Street (one of our big shopping streets) on a Saturday afternoon, especially during the holidays. At Resto, it's hard to beat the nostalgia factor and seeing um, other middle-age folks playing miniature 8-ball. At Kitchen Kaboodle (great local chain), I get free cookie samples while browsing the cookbooks, and at Urban Outfitters I can find all the stocking stuffers I need and get a dose of the latest youth music in 10 minutes. Plus, I will soon be able to get free coffee at Starbucks, having just received my new loyalty card. So stores have a definite place in my heart and in the hearts of millions of holiday shoppers -- especially when the experience stands out.


Kate Delhagen
Principal Analyst, Retail

P.S. Oh yeah, I mentioned TV. I'm not one of the millions of Americans buying from QVC or HSN, but I have bought from their Web sites. So here's a friendly reminder that even in the TiVo era, TV can drive massive Web traffic, and smart retailers will ensure that their URLs appear on air this holiday season.

Research Referenced In This Issue If you printed this email, get links to the research featured in this week's issue by going to www.forrester.com/go and entering the five-digit number of the report you'd like to read. 2003 US Online Holiday Sales: Merrier Than Ever (32618) Benchmark June 2003 Data Overview: Covers Forecasts, Devices, Broadband, Online Activities, Telecom, Finance, And Retail (16730) CIOs: Break The "IT Isn't Innovative" Stereotype (32293) Consumer Packaged Goods' Database Marketing Dilemma (32988) From Discs To Downloads (16076)    Getting Inside The Heads Of Retail CIOs (16766) Grading Work Force Management Vendors (17195) Large Online Retailers Must Boost Selling Metrics (16765) One-Click Email Address Changes Are Critical (32806) Practical Content Management For Sarbanes-Oxley (32798) Privacy Red Alert: Learn From JetBlue's Crisis (32737) Q3 2003 Online Sales: Surprisingly Strong Growth (32984) RIP: The Online Consumer, 1998 To 2003 (17225) Sizing The Canadian eCommerce Market (32315) Starbucks' Fancy New Card: Thanks A Latte! (32935) The Best Of Europe's Online Retail (16853) The Future Of Amazon.com (16873)    US eCommerce Overview: 2003 To 2008 (16875) Who Cares About Catalogs? (16012)

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