Holiday eCommerce sales trends that every business must know
The holiday season is the kac-ching season for eCommerce businesses! The top agenda on the minds of eCommerce giants and online store owners during the holiday season remains driving the flurry of shoppers to cart checkout and managing the high tide of orders without an “out of stock” message popping up on their beloved customers’ digital screens. However simple this statement may sound, achieving it for any business takes immense planning and a deep, granular understanding of holiday eCommerce sales. Moreover, the advent of value-seeking consumers necessitates that eCommerce businesses think like buyers and sell like champions!
Another important aspect to consider is that consumer behavior undergoes a significant change owing to festive fervour. For eCommerce businesses, it is more than just a “holiday sale is on” or a “happy holidays” banner on their websites. They must thoroughly comprehend the trends to decode the whims and fancies of their seasonal frenzy shoppers before decking up their online stores and websites.
The global eCommerce market, valued at USD 29.46 trillion, is poised to reach USD 83.28 trillion by 2030. The numbers say it out loud and clear that eCommerce is here to stay!
Let us take a look at some holiday spending statistics: Consumers spent around $241.4 billion online during the holiday sales season; there was a remarkable 8.7% YoY increase. While it sets a new record, the trend continues, as these numbers are set to grow by nearly 9% by 2029.
To make the most of the holiday eCommerce sales, businesses must go for digital transformation by partnering with a company offering the best eCommerce web development services and become holiday sale-ready for the year ahead. Here are the top-of-the-bunch holiday shopping season eCommerce sales trends that a business owner must know to precisely cater to the consumer’s appetite, become a nimble marketer, and strike gold.
Holiday eCommerce sales: Big numbers and the big picture
It is a well-established fact that online retail sales witness a sharp hike in the holiday season. The number says it all: eCommerce holiday sales accounted for 17.1% of total retail sales, 14.7% more than in the other seasons.
Underlying forces shaping the holiday eCommerce sales
Holiday frenzy has several factors, including convenience influencing eCommerce shopping, increased mobile adoption, and more. Here is an overview:
- Increased scope for a trade-up to higher-priced items in the wake of lucrative deals and discounts.
- Shopping on the go, owing to the convenience of purchasing from the comfort of home, and the device of choice.
- Avoiding long waiting queues and crowded physical storefronts
- The advent of AI-powered shopping assistants which are helping consumers find products easily.
- Availability of flexible payment options.
A quick take on holiday eCommerce shopping!
- 63% of Americans shop online for the holiday season.
- $10.8 billion of eCommerce sales on Black Friday, a 10.2% increase over previous years.
- $13.3 billion of eCommerce sales on Cyber Monday, a 7.3% increase over previous years.
- Approximately 63% of Americans shop online for Christmas.
- Online stores and eCommerce businesses levelling up to the halo effect created by Amazon Prime Days in July, coupled with the July 4th holiday and early back-to-school enticements, eCommerce sales surged by 9% compared to the previous year.
Challenges eCommerce retailers face during the holiday shopping season
- Supply chain disruptions
- discrepancies in inventory management
- Low website performance
- High cart abandonment rates due to sub-optimal user experience
Trends businesses must latch onto to ace the holiday eCommerce sales!
eCommerce businesses’ agility and responsiveness will be put to the test as consumer behavior turns on a dime during the holiday shopping season. Approximately 21% of global consumers go on an early shopping spree to tick off their purchases for festivities and special days. eCommerce businesses must be well prepared, i.e., sales and marketing ready in advance, to tap into this potential to stay afloat in the competitive turf. Here are some trends for eCommerce businesses to comprehend and adopt to stay ahead of the curve.
Appeasing mobile-savvy shopping consumers, aka mobile commerce
Mobile phones are the new shopping malls! Mobile-focused eCommerce growth is on the rise, with a significant portion of online sales happening through mobile devices. Besides providing the convenience of shopping on the go, mobile devices help consumers compare prices and make purchase decisions based on user reviews. With mobile commerce contributing 59% of global eCommerce sales, mobile-friendly designs and fast loading times, a mobile-friendly UX website, and one-click checkout are imperative for businesses selling online.
Optimizing sales with trusted and relatable guides: Influencers
Leveraging relatable guides to connect products or brands with the target audience works wonders for eCommerce businesses. Digital marketplaces and online platforms are overcrowded with ads, making it difficult for eCommerce businesses to stand out from the rest. It is where influencer marketing steps in! Influencers combine social proof with personalized recommendations and craft narratives, becoming trusted voices, guiding and inspiring users in their purchase choices and boosting sales. Online shopping experiences are devoid of the tactile experience of touch or feelings; influencers can bridge this gap between virtual products and real-world trust, driving the users to cart checkouts on a website. With 69% of consumers trusting influencer recommendations, influencer marketing is becoming imperative for eCommerce businesses.
Social commerce is making its presence felt
Imagine the impact of showcasing your products or services to around 5.31 billion worldwide social media users, which equates to 64.7% of the total global population, during the holiday season! Social commerce creates a robust scope for businesses to boost customer engagement, allowing brands, retailers, and eCommerce businesses to interact with users in real time via live shopping events and more.
By collaborating with a capable custom development service provider, businesses can develop in-app purchasing capabilities to ensure that customers buy products without leaving their social platforms. Additionally, millennial and Gen-Z shoppers seek inspiration, purchase ideas, and gift solutions from social platforms, as they spend a great deal of their waking time on social media. Hence, optimizing your online store, eCommerce selling platforms, and websites for social commerce ensures a competitive edge by paving the way for quick product discovery.
Link: https://www.sigmainfo.net/custom-development/
Appeasing the early shoppers
Nothing is more disappointing to a consumer than to learn that the product they desire to buy for their loved ones is “out of stock” in an online store. To bypass the shopping frenzy crowds and owing to the fear of missing out on limited stocks, consumers prefer to shop early. For instance, 52% of consumers shop for gifts in November, while 3% are commencing their holiday shopping as early as August. Retailers should make the most of early holiday shopping trends and the extended holiday shopping season, instead of a single-day spike in sales, and maximize their inventory procurement to increase sale
Meeting the consumers where they are! Going Omnichannel
The omnichannel strategy is not just a fad but a strategic medium to drive holiday sales. Additionally, today’s shoppers blend digital and in-store experiences, making an omnichannel approach the need of the hour for businesses. During the holiday shopping frenzy, consumers search for products across channels. Whether they are browsing for products online from the convenience of their smartphones, laptops, or a social platform, they seek an interconnected and seamless experience.
As 73% of consumers are omnichannel shoppers, to gain sales momentum, businesses must ensure that holiday offers and discounts are in sync with physical stores, mobile apps, and social media platforms, i.e., provide a unified shopping experience. To prevent loss of sales opportunities, businesses must implement systems for real-time inventory visibility across all channels for a frictionless, quick purchase. Integrating online and offline channels enables businesses to cater to the needs of consumers, who search for products online, prefer to try them in-store, and finalize their purchase via a website. Associating with an eCommerce development company with the capabilities of integrating ERP and CRM with core systems allows you to formulate a comprehensive omnichannel strategy for the holiday shopping season.
Choose Sigma Infosolutions to provide an omnichannel experience for your users!
Bringing products to life with AR and VR
eCommerce businesses are jumping onto the bandwagon of AR-based immersive experiences, as they deliver 200% more engaging experiences. Embracing AR/VR technologies allows businesses of all scales to let their consumers visualize products realistically and interactively. A heightened level of visualization instills a sense of confidence in the consumer, nudging them to swiftly make a purchase, increasing the conversion rates and reducing the return rates for eCommerce businesses. Mimicking in-store interactions and simulating festive-themed virtual stores, virtual showrooms, and fitting rooms provide ample scope for eCommerce businesses to boost sales during the holiday shopping season.
Capitalising on hands-free shopping: Voice commerce
Voice commerce is another compelling opportunity for businesses to boost holiday eCommerce sales. As 71% of consumers prefer voice-placed queries rather than typing them, businesses failing to warm up to voice commerce will lose out on several customers. Besides this, voice commerce makes shopping accessible to users with disabilities, simplifies the process of ordering, expedites checkout, and reduces cart abandonment rates. Integrating products and services for voice shopping through various voice commerce platforms gives a vantage point for eCommerce businesses, allowing them to cater to the needs of shoppers multitasking during the busy holiday season.
Driving sales efficiency with headless commerce
Headless commerce capabilities allow eCommerce businesses to gear up for the fast-paced holiday season sales. Separating the front end from the back end, headless architecture enables rapid changes, bringing robust agility, and making eCommerce systems fit to handle peak traffic periods. Headless commerce allows eCommerce businesses to make quick changes to their website and update products quickly. It enables businesses to enhance their omnichannel capabilities and provide a better shopping experience to consumers. Supporting numerous localizations, different languages, and payment options, headless commerce plays a vital role in enhancing the global reach for businesses.
Explore more about headless commerce and its benefits for your business
Deviating from monolithic to composable commerce platforms
A bottleneck that every business faces during the holiday shopping season is the inability to quickly launch new features and adapt to the ever-evolving and changing marketing trends. Is there a possible solution to this problem? The answer is to digress from monolithic and opt for composable commerce platforms. With composable commerce platforms, businesses can swiftly launch new features and stay up to date with the latest marketing trends during the holiday eCommerce sales. Upgrading their legacy eCommerce platforms to composable commerce systems enables businesses to roll out new campaigns and personalized deals, integrate AI solutions, and optimize conversion rates during the holiday shopping season.
Up close and personal: AI-driven bespoke solutions
Personalization has become the strongest tool in eCommerce for enhancing user engagement and sales during the holiday shopping season. To accomplish these objectives, eCommerce businesses must leverage AI-based bespoke solutions. With AI technologies by their side, businesses can offer recommendations such as “You might also like” or “Customers who bought this also purchased,” and persuade consumers to shop more. AI also makes targeted messaging or emails possible, nudging consumer to buy products that complement their initial purchase.
Tapping into the potential of digital payments
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) accounted for $18.2 billion in online transactions in the 2024 holiday shopping season. The numbers speak out loud that digital payments are imperative for businesses looking to provide a great customer experience and outpace their competitors during the holiday eCommerce sales. Younger generations rely heavily on digital wallets and BNPL options, so digital payment integrations have become the norm of the day for eCommerce businesses. With convenience and flexibility, BNPL and digital wallets empower consumers to spend more and make larger purchases during the holiday season. Digital payment integrations into eCommerce systems are a win-win for consumers and businesses. Besides being an attractive and appealing feature for shoppers, BNPL, digital wallets, and one-click checkout allow an enterprise to receive upfront payments and higher order values, and mitigate the risk of non-repayment fraud. Additionally, with the increasing adoption of mobile commerce, the use of the BNPL option on mobile devices further increases eCommerce sales during the holiday shopping season.
Tech Enablement with Sigma Infosolutions to make the most of the eCommerce sales trends
eCommerce sales trends abound, but to capitalize on them, businesses must be upfront in embracing digital transformation to get their eCommerce systems up and running during the holiday shopping season. It is where Sigma Infosolutions’ tech expertise comes to the forefront. With robust, customizable, and future-ready eCommerce solutions, ERP, CRM, API, and payment gateway integrations, we empower brands to enhance their user acquisition capabilities, ramp up sales, and navigate the path to success.
Website optimization by upgrading to the Magento platform and implementing headless architecture. Read our success story!
With Sigma Infosolutions, you will have at your disposal the best eCommerce development services that allow you to provide an unmatched customer experience and easily seize the deals. Whether you are launching a new store, taking up an online store development endeavor, or looking to scale your existing eCommerce platforms, Sigma Infosolutions precisely caters to all your business needs. By integrating powerful tools, we enable businesses of all sizes to create high-performing online stores.
To learn more about effective integrations, read the blog
Why Sigma Infosolutions?
At Sigma Infosolutions, we do not just integrate tools or solutions. We build a tech ecosystem with our domain expertise that helps businesses sustain and thrive in the ever-competitive eCommerce turf. Here’s how we deliver impact:
Scalable Architecture for High Traffic & Growth
It is never a cookie-cutter approach. Our solutions are built on cloud-native, modular architectures that are designed to scale with the business needs. Whether an enterprise is handling seasonal spikes during holiday sales or foraying into new markets, we create an infrastructure that can support high traffic, fast page loads, and real-time transactions, without compromising or negatively affecting the performance or uptime.
Omnichannel Commerce Integration
A seamless experience across web, mobile, social, marketplaces, and in-store channels is imperative for increasing sales. By integrating POS systems, CRMs, ERPs, and inventory platforms, we unify all the customer touchpoints to ensure consistent branding, accurate data, and a frictionless shopping journey for customers.
Mobile-First, Responsive Design
With mobiles becoming the nearest mall to shop, every eCommerce system must be mobile-friendly. Hence, every solution we build prioritizes responsive design, fast loading times, and intuitive navigation. We optimize UI/UX to drive conversions and engagement on all devices—especially smartphones and tablets, so that businesses do not miss any user acquisition opportunity.
Secure Payment Gateways & Checkout
With more users opting for digital payments and faster checkout options, secure payment gateways are imperative for businesses. We implement PCI-compliant, multi-gateway integrations with support for credit cards, digital wallets, BNPL options, and region-specific methods. Our secure checkout experiences are optimized for speed, trust, and low cart abandonment rates.
Headless Commerce and API-First Approach
We leverage headless commerce frameworks to offer greater flexibility, faster development cycles, and superior performance for eCommerce platforms. With an API-first methodology, we ensure seamless integration with PIMs, CMSs, and third-party services, which give businesses complete control over digital experiences they wish to offer their customers.
Custom Headless Builds (React, Vue, Next.js)
We specialize in building lightning-fast, custom storefronts using modern JavaScript frameworks like React, Vue.js, and Next.js. Owing to the use of these technologies, enterprises will have dynamic, scalable, and personalized eCommerce experiences that support all their performance needs.
Analytics & Performance Optimization
We integrate advanced analytics tools— and custom dashboards—to ensure businesses always have actionable insights on customer behavior, sales trends, and funnel performance and manage inventory and order flow effectively.
Actionable tips for businesses to ace the holiday eCommerce sales!
- Conduct website or online store holiday readiness audits.
- Optimize your websites and online stores for mobile user experience.
- Improve page speed and checkout flow.
- Upgrade your eCommerce infrastructure.
Looking to stay ahead of the curve during the peak sales season? Read the blog for more actionable tips.
Wrapping up
If you are a retailer, an online store owner, a director or manager of any eCommerce business, an eCommerce consultant, or a decision-maker or a CXO and the question on your mind is How can I increase sales during the holiday shopping season? With a proactive strategy and the required tech adoption by partnering with Sigma Infosolutions, you can create an eCommerce selling platform that will allow you to latch on to the trends mentioned above and take your business to new heights of success.
Explore strategies to supercharge your eCommerce platforms. Read the blog
With neck-to-neck competition in the eCommerce turf, staying afloat is never easy. It is where a scalable, high-functional eCommerce website makes the difference, allowing you to gain customers and increase sales efficiency. Partner with Sigma Infosolutions and leverage the best eCommerce development services to become holiday sales-ready! Contact us now!
