Report: Almost two-thirds of shoppers plan to skip Cyber Monday

While a majority of shoppers are ready to shop online this holiday season, many will sit out Cyber Monday this year.



This detail was highlighted in “Computop 2016 Holiday Shopping Study.” Computop’s report, which is based on responses from over 1,900 consumers across the United States and UK, found that 76% planned to shop online this holiday season. However, 62% of those respondents don’t plan to shop on Cyber Monday, noting it doesn’t offer the deals it used to previously.



Overall, 55% of respondents said that they plan to spend the same amount online as last year, with 19% planning to spend more. With regards to Cyber Monday, there is an even split among U.S. shoppers, with 50% planning to shop online, and 50% saying they won’t. The difference was much greater in the U.K., with 77% of respondents saying they won’t shop online on Cyber Monday, the report said.



Shoppers are also less interested in buying from online retailers outside of their own country this holiday season. Fifty percent (50%) of respondents were not interested, claiming they have enough options domestically, and an additional 22% noted that they were concerned about the security of their payment data beyond their borders, the study said.



When examining security issues specifically, 74% of respondents overall agreed they are concerned about security when disclosing their credit card and bank information online, and 45% percent strongly agree with these concerns. To further ensure their protection online, 71% of consumers confirmed that they check if the site has certificates like eTrust and SSL Certificate from Verisign, with 42% strongly agreeing that they do this. In addition, 61% of shoppers confirmed that they have checked the liability policy of their preferred payment method provider or bank in the case of fraud, the report said.



To ward off security concerns, shoppers are opting for more security authentication features. Within the next 12 months for example, 35% said they would set up fingerprint identification; 12% would select retina scans; 7% chose voice recognition, and 2% noted “pay-by-selfie.” However, a whopping 41% of total respondents said they wouldn’t choose any of the above, the study said.



“It’s not surprising to see the online shopping trend expected to continue this holiday season. What was particularly interesting is that despite the sustained interest in purchasing online, consumers continue to have sig-nificant concerns about the security of their personal information,” said Ralf Gladis, CEO of Computop.



“However, they are not necessarily interested in taking extra steps to pro-tect themselves,” Gladis said. “Before moving forward with features like these, it’s critical as an industry that we are able to ensure this data is stored securely before we potentially open up a possible new area for identify theft.”