Predictions for this upcoming holiday shopping season bode well for those invested in the success of the mobile platform as technology rapidly transforms the shopping experience, according to a new report released by PayPal.

The report features predictions on the holiday shopping landscape in the upcoming few months and focuses on the nature and source of holiday transactions. The immediate import of PayPal’s findings indicates that the convenience and portability of the mobile shopping platform is not lost on consumers, and that the transition to mobile technology is unequivocally organic.

Mobile marketplace
The report hones in on the mobile components that are assisting the online shopping experience this season, including mobile shopping platforms, mobile banking and peer-to-peer payments platforms.

It also collected information on a number of metrics involving shopping during the holiday season, many of which support both the recent phenomenon of consumers’ shift to mobile and Paypal’s predictions for further transitioning.

PayPal found that 59 percent of Americans find holiday shopping to be stressful, no doubt in part due to the harrowing experience of bricks-and-mortar retailing during the season. The aversion was so strong that 19 percent of millennials said they would rather text their boss on the weekend than deal with holiday shopping crowds.

40 percent of millennials reported planning to shop on Cyber Monday this year, and 59 percent of them planned to do their holiday shopping while binge-watching television. And if one is concerned if anything is sacred anymore, they will find no solace looking to holiday consumers: 22 percent report they will shop on the toilet, and 34 percent will shop in bed for their partner while they are sleeping next to them.

Peer-to-peer payments applications such as Paypal’s Venmo will help to facilitate a more diverse array of transactions, particularly among the millennials for whom uptake has been highest. Half of millennials plan to pool funds for gifts this holiday season, with 35 percent planning to collect via peer-to-peer platforms.

The survey, which polled 1,000 Americans planning to celebrate the holidays this year, was commissioned by PayPal conducted online by Koski Research this month.

The reports findings indicate a massive growth in mobile transactions

Organic transition
Traditional financial infrastructures are taking note of the shifting topography of the online shopping landscape, and are responding to advancements by companies such as PayPal in kind. A collection of the biggest names in American banking, including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are all partnering to add integration with a new mobile payments network called Zelle, competing with the dominant force in the industry, the aforementioned Venmo (see story).

And some of those traditional players are leveraging developments in mobile technology quite well, especially on the retail side. Mastercard and PayPal expanded their long-standing partnership to highlight the former’s payment options more clearly within PayPal’s platform and offer Masterpass acceptance to Braintree merchants (see story).