A new study from Retale has revealed that close to a fifth of consumers chose to leave their gift buying to the last minute in the run-up to Christmas 2014.

One of the main reasons that people were able to pick up gifts with confidence in the final days before December 25th last year is as a result of the tools that were available to them via safe shopping online.

As well as being able to place orders with guaranteed next day delivery from many different outlets, customers were using mobile devices to search out high street store opening times and locate products in the final hours of Christmas Eve, to ensure that none of their loved ones was disappointed.

Smartphones are so common that it is simple for people to search for the locations of stores and find out whether they have a particular item on offer. M-commerce services even mean that people can reserve an item and then collect it in person later in the day, ensuring that even shopping jaunts that take place at the last minute can be satisfying.

Fifty eight per cent of the respondents to the study said that they took advantage of a mobile or tablet to help with their shopping experience. And almost 9 out of 10 said that they used location-based services to help them identify the positions of stores in their area.

The rise of shopping online has made the internet the first port of call for many consumers who are searching for a particular product, or simply browsing for gifts. But web-based services are also allowing people to fit their retail needs into their lives more easily and give them the ability to shop right up until a deadline, without breaking a sweat.