In retail with no time to stay up to speed about what’s happening in the industry? Our monthly roundup has your back – able to deliver a fast and effective way to bring you up-to-date with ideal “water cooler” fodder. From consumer behavior and mobile search, to the quickly arriving 2016 holiday shopping season, here’s what you missed in September:

Amazon: Where more than half of online shoppers go to search

According to Bloomberg News, a Labor Day weekend poll of 2,000 U.S. participants concluded that 55% of such people go to Amazon first when searching for products, an increase from 44% in 2015. Search engines as the starting Point-of-Purchase for 28% of those surveyed, declining from last year’s 34%.

The article argues that Amazon Prime, the $99-a-year subscription that includes delivery discounts, video and music streaming and online photo storage, continues to remain a competitive force. Amazon had 49 million Prime members in August with the number expected to only increase from there.

Here's How Much You're Going To Spend On The Holidays This Year

Two out of five millennial shoppers have already started buying presents for the holiday season, reports Forbes.

According to a recent survey, millennials are one of the primary groups controlling holiday spending for 2016. It reports that this segment of the population is predicted to spend an average of $1,427 in 2016, up from the $1,072 they spent last year.

That said, millennials’ spending this holiday season still comes second to parents --who plan to spend an average of more than $1,700. This is about $300 more than they spent in 2015 and more than the $903 non-parents plan to dish out. More than half of millennials and parents revealed that they would buy a gift for themselves: men are planning to treat themselves to a gift of roughly $400 and women, $242.

Finally, ringing in the holidays, shoppers will spend on average $1,175 this year, up from last year’s $1,051.

Consumers do homework on mobile, especially about apparel and groceries

According to Internet Retailer, 78% of U.S. consumers say they research products on their smartphone and those items they are looking to buy that day – with base on an online survey that polled 5,048 consumers from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, China and Japan.

The influence of smartphones varies by country. In the United States, 31% of consumers rank their smartphone as the most important research device. While on the other side of the globe, in China, a whopping 50% of shoppers rank smartphones as the most important device for retail research.

Fifty-eight percent of American consumers say they’ve used their smartphone to research clothing and apparel purchases within the last 30 days. The next most popular category for the U.S. market is grocery, as 57% of U.S. consumers state they have used their mobiles to research a grocery-related purchase within the past 30 days. The following are the other categories in ranked order:

• Electronics, 41%
• Home goods and home improvement, 39%
• Beauty and wellness, 37%
• Games and entertainment, 31%
• Sports and leisure, 23%

The retail gap: 96% of consumers say retailers don’t know what they want

A recent survey posted on Internet Retailing revealed that customer satisfaction decreases as a retailer offers more buying channels. Sixty-two percent of consumers stated they had a seamless experience more than once across online and in-store, but that rate drops to 39% when mobile applications, phone and social media were included in the equation. Brick-and-mortar remains the most popular retail option, selected by 43% of respondents.

Retailers need to do a better job in regards to the stock visibility across all channels. Almost half of respondents said when products were not available online, their in-store visibility was rated between “average” and “very poor.”

Eighty-four percent of consumers see free-return policies as an integral part their decision to buy, 40% said they want to return goods by any method, regardless of their buying channel.

High Street Retail Is Dead. Long Live High Street Retail.

According to Forbes’ contributor Diden Tali, around 95% of retail sales are garnered by brands that have traditional High Street shops and the majority of those sales do continue to take place in physical stores. That said, “the channels of purchase are blurred for the omnichannel consumer, who taps into online and mobile technologies – or just visits a store, depending on the convenience.”

The article explains that although omnichannel shoppers might have complex behavioral patterns, strong data and analytics can decode their buying behaviors. When the consumer data is thoroughly analyzed, retailers are able to offer a better consumer experience via personalized recommendations and are empowered to predict future behavior.

Taking this into consideration, one might in fact conclude that High Street retail shopping of yesteryear may in fact be dead. However, layering innovative technologies and intelligent analytics to these retailers will catapult them to completely new experience.”

This concludes another of our monthly round-ups. Check back next month for a newly curated collection of headlines that will get you up-to-date with the retail industry’s latest buzz… Additionally, we invite you to stay tuned to our blog page and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for all of our musings.