48% of shoppers expect order confirmations within one minute
One quarter of consumers plan to start their holiday shopping this month and are ready to see promotions from their favorite brands, according to research conducted by Infobip.
The London, U.K.-based provider of cloud-based communications solutions surveyed more than 1,700 across nine markets to produce its Shopping season 2026 consumer survey and predictions report.
Once shoppers are enticed by holiday promotions, delivering a great customer experience (CX) means messaging them promptly in the post-purchase phase of the journey.
For example, while 37 per cent said they would wait up to five minutes for an order confirmation, nearly as many (31 per cent) said they wanted the same speedy response when they have support enquiries. Less than a third would wait up to an hour to hear back about a service issue.
Not surprisingly, email remains the dominant channel for receiving promotions, cited by 88 per cent, while push notifications represented less than a quarter of those surveyed.
Email must be managed carefully, however: 75 per cent said they unsubscribe to brands based on getting too many messages too often, while half said they get irrelevant messages.
Brands who master customer communications could be in a better position to bring AI into other aspects of CX. Right now 41 per cent say they already used an AI shopping assistant a few times, and nearly three-quarters said they would consider it for making product comparisons. Almost half (47 per cent) said they would also be open to virtual try-on experiences when they shop online.
“Retailers are still figuring out how to use AI in a way that feels genuinely helpful. Use AI for comparisons, discovery, and simple service tasks first,” the report’s authors wrote. “Keep a clean handoff to a human agent when the question gets more complex. This is where AI agents can help, by handling automation, channels, AI orchestration, and live support can work together in one flow.”
360 Magazine Insight
Infobip is focusing a lot on the value of RCS messaging, but this research doesn’t hit people over the head with it. Instead, the report offers a balanced look at omnichannel marketing and communications, as well as what shoppers expect throughout the journey.
For instance, using AI or even traditional messaging requires consumers to opt in, but how to do that well has been under-discussed. Infobip’s report shows 72 per cent of shoppers want a clearly marked text box, but not one that’s already been pre-ticked as though presuming their consent.
In contrast, only 20 per cent want to see a pop-up banner on their first visit. The research didn’t get into whether this changes if the brand offers a discount for opting into email or text messaging, but the key takeaway is probably that shoppers don’t come to a web site to have their experience immediately interrupted.
There is a lot more worth looking at in this ungated report, including the many regional breakdowns of the data, as well as a series of “CX maturity checkpoints” with solid advice on best practices.
