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70% of UAE consumers plan to do more holiday shopping via apps in 2023

At the same time 68% of UAE consumers noted that irrespective of how good the deals are, there is no excuse for a poor online shopping experience

With UAE consumers gearing up for the annual end of year holiday shopping sales, new data reveals that a majority of these shoppers will rely on applications and digital services to get what they need. Compared to 2022, this year, 70 per cent of UAE consumers plan to do more of their holiday shopping online, via applications and digital services.

The study from Cisco AppDynamics, which surveyed 12,000 consumers across 12 countries — including 1000 consumers in the UAE — explored consumer intentions, behaviours, and preferences when it comes to online shopping during the holiday season. On average, UAE consumers expect that 68 per cent of their holiday shopping spend this year will be through applications and digital services, compared to an estimated 61 per cent last year.

The biggest driver for this uptick in preference for online shopping is that 52 per cent of UAE consumers feel that they can get better choice online than in stores. UAE consumers also cited ability to shop during working hours (34 per cent), wanting to avoid last minute panic buying in store (32 per cent) and ability to shop outside of normal retail hours or at convenient times for them (24 per cent) as key reasons for preferring to shop online this upcoming holiday season.

For online retailers in the UAE, this represents a huge opportunity to attract new customers and drive revenues. But the pressure on brands to deliver seamless digital experiences is also higher than ever before. 77 per cent of UAE consumers stated that if the applications and digital services that they will be using to do their holiday shopping fail to perform, it will leave them feeling anxious and angry. And in a clear warning to online retailers, 68 per cent of UAE consumers noted that irrespective of how good the deals are, there is no excuse for a poor online shopping experience and 72 per cent said retail brands have just one shot to impress them this upcoming holiday season.

“Retailers that can combine great deals with seamless application performance over the coming months will have a decisive edge when it comes to attracting customers and driving sales. But managing IT availability and performance of today’s complex hybrid environments can be challenging for some organizations,” commented James Harvey, CTO Advisor EMEA, Cisco AppDynamics.

“To mitigate this risk, they need to implement an observability solution which spans across both cloud native and on-premises environments and allows technologists to monitor the health of key business transactions distributed across their entire technology landscape. With real-time insights from the business transaction’s telemetry data, technologists can swiftly understand the root cause of issues and expedite resolution, so that applications are always operating at peak performance.”