$200 billion! US holiday online sales remain strong

Affected by the epidemic, online sales in the United States achieved unprecedented growth during the holiday season of 2020. According to foreign media forecasts, this year's holiday online sales in the United States will increase by 12.1% over last year.

Rising costs and inventory shortages amid the global supply chain crisis, as well as some holiday marketing activities that started early in September and October, will to some extent curb this year's holiday sales growth.

Still, Digital Commerce 360 ​​predicts that online revenue will surpass the $200 billion mark for the first time this year, reaching $215.45 billion in the November-December period.

  Image via Digital Commerce 360

Meanwhile, DC360 estimates that retail sales across all channels, including physical stores, will grow 9.4% this quarter. This year, consumers will spend $843.24 billion, up from $771.06 billion last year. Of this, online sales will account for 25.5%, meaning that $1 out of every $4 spent on retail shopping will come from online orders.

This year's growth rate has slowed down compared with previous years

According to DC360 data, seasonal e-commerce surged 40.8% in 2020, a record high and more than three times the growth rate this year. If the increase this year is 12.1%, it will be the lowest holiday growth rate since 2015.

        Image via Digital Commerce 360

During the outbreak of the epidemic last year, due to many restrictions and shortages of goods, many physical stores were forced to close, and consumers turned their attention to online consumption. This year, consumers' online shopping behavior is still continuing, and more US dollar consumption will be generated. However, with the overall slowdown in e-commerce growth in 2021, the growth momentum of the holiday in November this year has also weakened.

According to historical data, the online penetration rate was the highest in the fourth quarter, driven by shopping festivals such as Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday. Last year, due to the epidemic, the holiday online penetration rate jumped by nearly 6 percentage points from 19.2% in 2019 to 24.9%. Under normal circumstances, an increase of 2 percentage points is a great development.

It is predicted that online penetration will continue to remain the same this year, or increase by only 1 percentage point to 25%, partly because omnichannel retail is also growing at a similar rate. Against the backdrop of vaccination, consumers have returned to offline stores, prompting a significant increase in offline sales, which are expected to increase by 8.5% year-on-year this year .

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