Dive Brief:

• Following predictions for increased holiday sales this year, a Shopify survey on Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending found that consumers expect to spend $787 during the popular shopping weekend this year, over $100 more than 2020. 
• Most survey respondents (94%) said they plan to shop online for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and nearly two-thirds (65%) said they will be shopping in stores. Shoppers aged 18 to 34 are more likely to look for a product in store before buying online, per the survey results shared with Retail Dive.
• More than three-fourths (77%) of online shoppers for the holiday expect shipping for their purchases to be free, and the majority of them (84%) expect retailers to cover return shipping fees as well.

Dive Insight:

Consumers may still be expecting free shipping like years past for the Black Friday weekend, but retailers this year are bracing themselves for higher shipping costs due to the pandemic's impact on the supply chain, which could find their way back to shoppers.

FedEx, USPS and UPS have each announced surcharges over the course of this year citing an increase in demand. According to a study from First Insight and the Wharton School's Baker Retailing Center, 59% of retail executives said they plan to raise item prices or shipping costs for customers, while 36% will keep their prices steady instead of passing that cost onto consumers.

Shoppers are also expecting similarities in what types of brands they buy from on Black Friday weekend this year, Shopify found. More than half of respondents (59%) said they plan to spend the same amount on independently owned businesses that they did last year, and 58% anticipated spending the same amount with locally owned businesses as last year. Still, a recent report from JLL indicated that shoppers' top retailers remain Amazon, Walmart and Target.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday purchasing behavior is expected to be a mix of online and in-store, according to Shopify, as retailers wait to see the full impact of the pandemic on channel preferences. According to a recent Coresight Research report, 65.1% of U.S. holiday shoppers plan to buy their gifts from brick-and-mortar stores, but almost 20% of shoppers are transitioning some or all of their spending online instead. Despite the e-commerce surge, Forrester projects that 72% of retail sales will take place in physical stores between now and 2024 in the U.S.