The holiday season ending every year is supposed to be a time of joy and celebration. From trick-or-treating on Halloween to giving thanks and presents to ringing in a new year, the holidays should be lots of fun and happy memories with those that you love.
Unfortunately, spreading that love means lots of holiday shopping. You not only buy a lot of presents or spend lots of money on them but you also need to buy decorations, food for parties, winter clothes, travel essentials, and many other things.
If you’re like many consumers, you’re turning more and more to apps to help you with holiday shopping. There are many good reasons for doing this.
Take Advantage of App-Specific Deals
Many retailers have grown savvy about app enthusiasts. They know anyone using their app is probably a loyal customer who has bought into their brand loyalty. They reward that loyalty and even reinforce it by offering app-specific deals only available in their app and not on a website or in any stores. Some of those deals will only be made available to those who happen to be in the app, but a lot of them will be publicized widely just to get people into their apps. Make the most of these specials as often as you can for tremendous savings.
Shop Faster Compared to Websites
No matter how fast your online connection is, apps are likely to load faster than websites. Their content and features are streamlined right in the program when you open them. While they still need to communicate with a server quite frequently, the data packets simply aren’t nearly as large. If you’re on a limited data plan, this can save you money. It will nearly always mean that your shopping will go faster through an app than a website. Even mobile versions of websites aren’t typically as fast as apps are.
Track Credit Card Usage Throughout the Season
Using credit card management apps to monitor holiday spending is a great way to be a responsible holiday shopper. It’s more than just keeping track of your overall available balances. Of course, doing so keeps you from paying late fees and overdraft penalties for going over your credit limits.
There are other benefits, however. Monitoring your credit cards during holiday shopping means you can find the best cards and balances available for each purchase. Rather than just seeing which card has room for a particular purchase, you can see which ones might give you the best interest rates, rewards, or points. Instead of being someone who needs a tax return early in the next year to pay off holiday shopping, you can instead be someone who starts the new year with a better credit score than you had a few months prior.
Buy Presents From Anywhere
Apps are specifically designed for mobile electronics. Smartphones dominate this category, but tablets fall under this umbrella, too. That means that people using apps to do their holiday shopping can do it pretty much wherever they are comfortable holding their smartphone or tablet. Rather than being restricted to retail stores like before e-commerce or using laptops and desktops only, they can shop any place they are comfortable, be it in bed, lounging on their sofa, or even while soaking in the tub.
Find Out Information When Window Shopping
Online shopping and e-commerce gain more market share with every holiday season, and apps are a crucial engine behind that growth. However, they serve a useful purpose for consumers who do window shopping or walk the aisles of brick-and-mortar stores. If they see something they might be interested in, they’ll look it up in the apps on their smartphone. Rather than just settle for buying it right then and there, they’ll look up comparable or even identical items on their smartphones. They look for information, reviews, and better pricing. Many times, they find all of that.
Key Takeaways
Consumers are turning to apps like never before for help with their holiday shopping. The right apps let them:
- Find special deals.
- Shop faster.
- Track their credit card usage and holiday debt.
- Shop anywhere they want.
- Find online options when window shopping.
Holiday sales are a significant source of economic activity for many businesses, and households turn to technology to make the most of it.
