Here’s something cool. During last year’s holiday season, we conducted one of the most ambitious research projects we’ve ever taken on – comparing retailers’ holiday expectations with consumers’ actual holiday shopping experiences – in 8 different countries all across the globe, and in each region’s native language. We surveyed 400 retailers before Black Friday weekend, and then more than 8,000 consumers mid-shopping season to get the results. And chances are, you’ve probably never seen any of it; until now. We conducted the research with our good partner PayPal, and apart from some excerpts we’ve provided partner publications and a small presentation Nikki and I gave at last year’s NRF Big Show, we’ve been holding onto the data for when “thoughts of holiday ” come back around. With Black Friday less than 2 weeks away, that time is here, and we’ll spend the next few weeks sharing some of the more revealing points we found. First off, we asked retailers just how long they think customers will wait in line during routine holiday shopping. As you might expect, they tend to feel pretty good about their odds.

Figure 1

But when asked the exact same question, consumers all over the world report wait times that are far worse than retailers imagined. Hardly surprising, but mind you, this is only during routine holiday shopping trips.

Figure 2

Where things really start to get interesting are when we start referencing peak holiday times. Take a look at what retailers’ expected (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Even during these peak hours, retailers think they’ve got a decent handle on in-store checkout lines. With the exception of Russia and Brazil (where even retailers admit that there’s an expectation to wait), most retailers don’t expect checkout line wait times to get past 2-5 minutes. This is in stark contrast with what consumers’ report (Figure 4).

Figure 4

In the US, Canada, Russia and Brazil, odds are a customer will be waiting at least 9 minutes to check out. This is during an age when nearly anyproduct can be bought online in a matter of seconds. And as you might expect, this is just the tip of the iceberg for this data. In the coming weeks, we’llshare his/her viewpoints on such topics as payments, behaviors in-line, shopping days, shopping times, cart abandonment and both parties’ views on whatcan be done to improve the overall in-store shopping experience. Pretty cool, right?