38% of online shoppers say they are planning to do more shopping online this holiday season.
Zoomerang, the leader in online surveys, today released the results of its nationwide study of more than 400 online shoppers. While 22% already began shopping for the holidays before October 1, the majority say they will be shopping online from October 1 thru December 10, 2009.

Convenience was cited as the most important reason women are planning to shop online, while the ability to compare prices easily was the most motivating reason for men. 18% of holiday shoppers plan to spend $501-$1,000 online this year, while only 9% plan to spend $501-1,000 in traditional brick and mortar stores and shopping malls. Ages 26-64 are the most popular recipients being shopped for online. Electronics and accessories was the #1 holiday shopping category, followed by clothing and apparel with books and media placing third.

5 Tips for Your E-Commerce Website This Holiday Shopping Season

1. Offer Free Shipping - 74% of online shoppers cited the cost of shipping as the #1 reason for NOT completing a purchase online!
2. Create Coupons - 47% of online shoppers stated that they search for online coupons before completing their purchases.
3. Advertise Gift Cards - Gift cards surfaced in the study as a popular holiday shopping item.
4. Offer Payment Options - After credit cards, 21% of online shoppers prefer to pay through PayPal, which emerged as a more popular payment method than ATM/debit cards.
5. Get Positive Product Reviews - The top three most popular sites among the online shoppers are Amazon, Ebay and Buy.com, which all offer customer reviews as part of the shopping experience. 82% of respondents stated that they would be more likely to purchase an unknown brand with positive reviews over a well-known brand with negative reviews.

About Zoomerang

Zoomerang, part of MarketTools, Inc., pioneered Web-based surveys in 1999 to give organizations a powerful, self-service solution to conduct accurate comprehensive surveys with a minimum of cost and effort. Today, Zoomerang is the world's #1 source for online surveys, helping thousands of organizations, including over 70 of the Fortune 100. Zoomerang's business, educational and non-profit customers have created and sent more than 100 million surveys. Zoomerang supplements its surveys with expert professional services, including survey programming, and the recruitment and selection of custom groups of survey respondents. The survey provider also hosts MySpace polls and Facebook polls that you can use to get friends' opinions on your favorite social networks.

Source: San Fransisco, CA (PRWEB) October 19, 2009