The air is crisp, the spirit is high, and the holidays are upon us! Aside from get togethers and big family dinners, what does this mean to us? It means that big time shopping is about to be underway! In preparation for the season, everybody will be making major moves to get all of the gifts and forget-me-nots to loved ones in time for the holidays. While we can expect the typical, annual hustle and bustle of trying to cram to get in gift shopping, what can we expect to see in the shopping dynamic this year? Will the malls be packed as they are every year or will their be an altogether different mode by which people are approaching their shopping? Let’s dive in shall we?
Holiday Figures
Every year, sellers progress their way through the end of the conclusional annual financial landmark. The whole year’s worth of efforts, although crucial throughout, can sometimes see its heaviest influence within the final few months of the year. The sales within the last quarter of the fiscal year, that being October, November, and December, make a big dent in the overall performance of said year. National Retail Federation found that:
“For some retailers, the holiday season can represent as much as 30 percent of annual sales with jewelry stores reporting the highest percentage, accounting for approximately 27.4 percent of their sales during the 2015 holiday season. Overall last year holiday sales represented nearly 20 percent of total retail industry sales.”
Sufficient to say, the final quarter of the year accounts for a huge portion of the financial year. Ultimately, this time of year will dictate whether or not a company had a profitable fiscal year overall.
We can see what past years have held for this time of year for all sorts of businesses in all industries. But what can we expect this year to hold? What happens online, especially, is not to be overlooked as a contender any longer. Online sales have been increasing for sometime, This same case goes for the ever-pertinent understanding that the holiday season rakes in the big sales. The online presence is certainly reflected within that time. This year alone, Furniture Today projects, retail sales conducted online should just by a solid 13.8 percent, a relatively large jump for this selling medium during the holiday season. What else could be expected in terms of sales, both brick-and-mortar and and online for this season?
Seasonal Shopping 2017
Brick-and-mortar shopping has always taken the cake overall. It stands that 94% of retail sales are still conducted in brick-and-mortar stores as conveyed by Retail Touch Points, so generally physical shopping is the more popular option. However online shopping may soon be king of Q4, the shopping season. With increases in the rates of online shopping for the holiday, along with the mere fact that holiday buying accounts for such a large portion of the fiscal year, e-commerce is making big leaps in becoming the majority-preferred mode of buying moving forward.
As a matter of fact, just the simple fact that more people are online is tilting the scale. More than 3 billion people are now using the internet, as a matter of fact (Time). What you find is that more and more people are using the internet as a mode of many life endeavors, and it is only natural that the ever-looming compulsion to buy out of necessity or desire join that equation. Big Commerce states:
“96% of Americans with internet access have made an online purchase in their life, 80% in the past month alone”
So, as we know now, there is a trickle effect. More people are using the internet, thus more people are buying online, especially during the high points of the selling year, making online shopping more and more majority-utilized. However, amidst all this talk of where e-commerce stands in relation to brick-and-mortar, it is anticipated that this year will bear something massive for the selling world at large. Along with their projection for increases in online holiday shopping, Furniture Today also says that we can expect online shopping modes to out-sell brick-and-mortar this holiday season for what may be the first time! It states that the National Retail Federation expects most consumers, over half at 59 percent, of shopping to be done online. While there are many factors at play here, there is one major contender who is providing serious aid to this surge in online sales: Amazon.
Amazon and Holiday Sales
Flash back to last year’s holiday season, 2017. Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales broke records in single-day e-commerce selling, hitting highs of $3 billion in sales. Of these record breaking numbers, what could be seen in the breakdown? As expected, Amazon was by-and-large the assumed culprit behind this successful online selling season. Compared to Best Buy (3.9%), Target (2.9%), Walmart (2.7%), and Macy’s (2.5%) as the runners-up, Amazon contributed to a whopping 36.9 percent of online sales, as shown by CNBC. As Amazon continues to push itself further into control of the online selling arena, we it becomes more and more realistic that we will in fact see the projected crossing over in the majority of online holiday sales.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the holiday shopping time of year is in full swing, and the curious topic at hand for buyers and sellers alike is what to expect for shopping experiences this year and for years to come. As is apparent with the growth in use and popularity of the internet, online sales continue to become more prevalent in how we tackle this heavy shopping season. With powerhouses like Amazon in the mix as well as the strong commercial nature of the season in conjunction with one another, online shopping is becoming more and more of a front runner. As e-commerce gains this momentum, prepare your online business strategy. To get the best in websites and all the tools necessary to compete online, contact Rave Retailer today!