Today, we’ll take a closer look at the e-commerce holiday season since days such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas are slowly creeping around the corner. Here are some predictions after having talked with industry leaders and studied hundreds of trend reports. Here are our latest ecommerce trends for holiday Season 2022.
For many ecommerce players the fourth quarter makes up the busiest shopping season of the year. However, this year is unique because the cost of goods is rising faster than can reasonably be assessed. Consumers as well as retailers want to maintain growth and at the same time do it profitably. An omnichannel approach might be the solution.
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At the same time, it’s critical for companies to keep a pulse on consumer behavior and the fast-changing business environment, and since the holiday season presents a major opportunity for most companies, it’s important to navigate well in these uncharted waters.
Several markets in Europe were in lockdown over the peak period in 2020. Retailers should therefore be wary of using last year’s trading figures as a plan for predicting demand this holiday season. Long-term increases in demand should be separated from the spikes that were driven purely by store closures or bad weather. Black Friday was renamed to Black Week as sales were spread out more. The same happened with Cyber Monday, and we believe this trend continues.
With such a huge opportunity in Q4, have you ensured that your brand is prepared? Read on and get important facts and figures.
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Inflation, supply chain problems, and labor shortages are just some of the challenges businesses are facing now, and customers, aware of the economic changes, are looking to stock up on discounts to beat future price hikes. Businesses should expect a rise compared to their 2019 holiday figures – maybe as much as 25% to 50% growth on their sales two years ago if they are running an established online shop. But you should remember that the biggest selling days on Amazon in Europe last year were the 13th and 14th December, as this was the last Sunday and Monday when customers could order with guaranteed delivery of gifts.
This year, we believe the biggest dates for online sales could be as late as Sunday 18th and Monday 19th December because of when Christmas falls.
Be aware of the fact that 6 out of 10 consumers are concerned about a retailer’s credibility or potential personal data breaches when shopping online. Have your systems in order. With an AI-based strategy for fraud prevention, you can apply adaptive decisioning to accept, challenge, or deny a transaction without resorting to lengthy manual reviews so that you can accelerate the manual reviews that are actually necessary.
Despite the supply chain issues, retailers pulled off a successful 2021 holiday season. According to Deloitte, the total holiday retail sales in 2021 increased by 8.5%, the largest annual increase in 17 years. Retailers realized that some of the pandemic shopping trends had settled into post-pandemic habits.
By this point of the year, your product selection should be decided, stock ordered and promotion planned. Be prepared to be flexible. If a key competitor goes on promotion earlier than you expected, you may want to follow suit at a short notice. Your promotional marketing could be as detailed as hour by hour for key days such as Black Friday. Make sure your operations and processes are robust – they will be stretched by both the planned peaks and potentially unplanned ones too.
There are still more than three months to go until the peak of the holiday shopping season and Cyber 5 – but many consumers have already kicked off their holiday shopping. In fact, 38% of US shoppers who participated in Amazon Prime Day 2022 say they purchased holiday gifts during the sales event.
According to Adobe, except apparel and toys, every key category saw less aggressive discounts in 2021 compared with the prior year. The overall level of holiday discounting was 9% in 2021, down from 14% in 2020. For furniture/bedding, the discounting was 2% compared with 4% in 2020.
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If order management, fulfillment and customer service is not smooth, it will leave a lasting negative impression on customers, and increasingly this is spread more widely through word of mouth on social media. Once you’re into the peak trading period, make sure you are regularly walking the online store in the same way as you would in a physical store. By doing this, you can make continual improvements, so customers have the best possible experience and are encouraged to convert.
The average sales price (ASP) is set to increase 8-12% each month for the remainder of 2022. But brands and retailers can still expect Cyber Week 2022 to be a major revenue-driving event, especially with price-conscious shoppers who are looking for good deals. In 2021, Cyber Week (the 5-day period encompassing Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday) brought in $36.4 billion in revenue in the US alone.
Ever since the pandemic, customers place more value on convenience and speed when shopping, evidenced by a significant shift in click-and-collect orders.
Data from eMarketer shows that this preferred shopping method from 2020 remained popular throughout 2021. Though click and collect declined slightly as a percentage of e-commerce orders compared with 2020, it still drove nearly one in four online transactions.
Ecommerce holiday sales have been rising since the dawn of online shopping, but growth skyrocketed in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic.
After increasing 11% in 2018 and 16.2% in 2019, US digital holiday sales surged 32% year-over-year in 2020 to $185.9 billion. In 2021, ecommerce sales grew a smaller but still significant 14.4%, hitting $206.9 billion.
Latest Ecommerce Trends for Holiday Season 2022, read on….
Ecommerce sales made up nearly 1 in 5 holiday purchases last year.
Offline holiday sales still surpass online sales – and they’ve also grown rapidly. Overall US holiday retail sales reached $843.4 billion in 2021. That’s up from $691.7 billion in 2019!
In 2022, shockwaves from the pandemic will continue to transform consumer shopping habits. Inflation is one such impact, with the annual US inflation rate currently around double what it’s been for the past 40 years.
Contrary to what many believe, mobile is a popular channel for furniture buyers. Data from Salesforce shows that the average share of online orders through mobile during November and December 2021 was 6%. This number goes up to 11% during the peak season, especially during Cyber Week.
The number of retailers leveraging the power of 3D visualization has increased significantly, especially since the pandemic. The influx of digital twins of products in the digital space has opened a new chapter in the retail world: 3D commerce.
The new way of shopping powered by the use of 3D product visualization opened up a new chapter for the furniture industry. The furniture retailer Jerome’s witnessed a 49% increase in conversion rates after implementing 3D product visualization.
Some consumers might kick off their holiday shopping early this year to spread the purchases out more instead of spending a significant sum of money all at once. This is a continuation of a trend from the 2021 holiday shopping season, when consumers started buying holiday gifts earlier than ever due to supply chain and shipping concerns.
The behaviors and demands of consumers are changing frequently, and if you can’t keep up with these consumer habits, you may lose them to competitors who do.
Latest Ecommerce Trends for Holiday Season 2022, compiled by Tor Kjolberg
Feature image (on to): © Myriam Jessier/Unsplash