Holiday online sales likely to remain flat YoY

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What marketers in retail need to do to avoid disappointing holiday sales this year.


on August 23, 2023

Current predictions have 2023 global holiday online sales set to reach around $ 1.2 trillion compared with $ 1.14 trillion in 2022 — essentially a flat trend. Retailers are recommended to consider timely discounts, friendly return policies and the use of AI to drive personalized service, promotions and commerce experiences.


The statistics, from the Salesforce Shopping Index, are based on an analysis of more than 1.5 billion visitors to sites using Salesforce’s Customer 360 suite, including a majority of the top 30 U.S. retailers.


Why we care. It’s what we hear on the news every day. Unemployment is down, inflation seems to be under control and the economy has rebounded from COVID: but people don’t quite believe it. Shoppers are not going to cut their digital spend for the holidays, but neither are they going to throw caution to the winds and spend like never before.


 


Enter AI. With 17% of shoppers saying they have already used generative AI to inspire purchases, retailers are paying attention. Salesforce forecasts that predictive and generative AI will “influence” $ 194 billion in global online holiday shopping.


Just send it back. Burdened already with excess inventory, some 88% of retailers are likely to take the risk of tightening their return policies. Salesforce warns that stricter return windows — 30 days or less — could lead to 7% fewer online sales in October and November and that poor (unclear, difficult) return policies could put more than 20% of sales at risk.


Early birds. Discounts will come early this year and reach their height during Cyber Week. It’s expected that 25% of holiday digital sales will take place during Cyber Week.


 








 


The post Holiday online sales likely to remain flat YoY appeared first on MarTech.

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About the author











Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.

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