New online shoppers will provide an interesting opportunity for advertising, at about 9%, as holiday online consumer spend reaches $189 billion this year — up 33%, according to Adobe’s most recent forecast. Those shoppers, who are new to ecommerce, are a result of changing behavior based on the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Conversion rates are expected to increase by 13%, but the average order value will remain the same compared with last year. 

Adobe’s 2020 holiday predictions suggest online sales could generate more than $200 billion if physical stores shut down in a large part of the country and the government issues another round of stimulus checks.

Adobe expects November and December to turn into Cyber Months this year rather than the traditional Cyber Week, which lasts from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday.

Online sales will surpass $2 billion daily between November 1 and November 21, increasing to $3 billion daily between November 22 and December 3.

The findings are based on data from Adobe Sensei, the company artificial intelligence and machine-learning technology.

The technology identifies retail insights from trillions of data points that flow through Adobe Analytics and Adobe Commerce Cloud, both part of Adobe Experience Cloud. 

Adobe Analytics analyzes one trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 80 of the 100 largest retailers in the U.S.– more than any other technology company.

The analysis of the data also suggests Black Friday will generate 39% more this year versus last year — totaling $10 billion in online sales. Cyber Monday will remain the biggest online shopping day of the year with $12.7 billion, up 35% YoY.

Smartphones will drive many more transactions this year compared with last. Americans will spend $28.1 billion more via smartphones vs. 2019, accounting for 42% of all online sales — a 55% increase YoY.

Small retailers — those with between $10 million and $50 million in annual online revenue — will see a larger boost of about 107% compared with large retailers, which Adobe estimates will see an 84% boost. Some 51% of consumers plan to support small and local retailers on Small Business Friday.

Election week — between Nov. 1 and Nov. 7 — will reach $16.3 billion in online sales. On the day after the election, online sales will grow 11% more slowly than the full week.

Curbside pickup evolves into the most desirable service. Buy one, pick up in stores (BOPIS) now include curbside pickup in the data. This service is expected to generate more than 40% more orders this year, compared with last. BOPIS is expected to top 50% ofallorders at retailers that offer the service during the week leading up to Christmas.

Some 64%of consumers say they will notpay for expedited shipping this year, signaling to retailers that free shipping cut-off datesneed to be communicatedearly.