After the excitement of Halloween comes the growing shadow of the holiday shopping season – and despite much of this year being dominated by headlines proclaiming the death of the high street, and several established retailers collapsing into administration, 2018 looks set to be a record breaking year for consumer sales figures.
The 2018 Adobe Digital Insights have just been released, as is traditional on 01 November and paint a very optimistic picture for retailers both online and offline.
- It’s going to be very jolly!
2018 might have been a tough one for retailers but they can at least expect a very jolly November and December. In fact, this holiday season will see record breaking amounts spent by consumers – Adobe says $124.1 billion will be spent by US shoppers alone, which is 14.8% more than last year. Last year, the figure was $102.8 billion, which in itself was a 14.7% increase versus 2016.
What’s even better news for embattled high street retailers is those brands with a physical store front and an online shop will be in the strongest position, with 28% higher online conversions. Typically, around half of shoppers will go in store to see a product and then eventually order online.
The trend will go the other way too, with more and more shoppers ordering online but then opting for an in-store pickup.
- The Thanksgiving weekend will be busiest ever
Thanksgiving takes place on the fourth Thursday of November and this year, it’s expected to be the biggest and busiest yet. Adobe predicts that $23.4 billion will be spent online over the course of the weekend, which is almost 20% more than last year. The final day of the weekend, Cyber Monday will be the biggest online shopping day ever, with ecommerce sales reaching a record high – meaning supply chain and distribution plans, including materials handling, packing, picking and shipping, will need to be operating at optimal levels to meet demand.
- Mobile will be key
We’re all seemingly glued to our smartphones so it should come as no surprise that mobile will play a big part during the build up to Christmas too. In fact, online retailers should expect more than half of their traffic to originate on a mobile device between now and 24 December. Approximately 27% of sales made online during the festive season will be purchased on a mobile device – making factory and warehouse equipment like hand pallet trucks and weighing scale trucks vital if retailers plan to live up to the convenience of online shopping with speedy distribution and delivery.