Study: Millennials follow holiday shopping traditions

Black Friday and Cyber Monday may still be cool, after all.



A new study on the holiday shopping habits of almost 7,000 millennials by product discovery platform Influenster shows that 93% of respondents plan on shopping Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday this year.



In addition, 95% of respondents said they generally do at least some of their holiday shopping on one or both of these traditional gift-buying days. Popular destinations for millennials on Black Friday and Cyber Monday include many brands familiar to their elders, such as Target (85%), Amazon (70%), Walmart (66%), Best Buy (49%) and Macy’s (49%).



In terms of what influences millennials’ Black Friday and Cyber Monday purchases, more than half listed to good old-fashioned word of mouth (53%). However, newer and more tech-driven influences such as online reviews (72%) and social media (58%) illustrate this generation’s digital orientation.



Sixty-seven percent of millennials plan on online shopping during Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday; of which 83% of the online shoppers will shop on their desktops/laptops while 58% of them will do so on their mobile devices.



In another sign of changing time, of those shopping via mobile devices, 10% of them will actually purchase through social "buy" buttons. However, the top three brands millennials plan to buy on Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday – Apple, Victoria’s Secret and Nike – have been well-established since the days their parents wore big hair and acid-washed denim.