Based on expert forecasts and the latest economic data, the 2024 holiday shopping season could be a good season for online retailers.
The National Retail Federation says: Recorded 183.4 million people Americans plan to shop in stores and online from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday this year. This will surpass the previous record of 182 million people by 2023.
Throughout the holiday season, NRF predicts that the Internet will once again be the number one shopping destination for holiday shoppers, with 57% of U.S. consumers planning to do at least some of their holiday shopping online. I am. Department stores and grocery stores are tied for second place with 46% each, while discount stores come in third with 45%.
NRF projects that total 2024 U.S. holiday sales (online and offline) in November and December will reach $989.9 billion, an increase of up to 2.6% compared to 2023. That’s a record $902 in average spending per person on gifts, food, décor and other seasonal items. According to NRF, online holiday sales are expected to reach $300 billion in 2024, an 8.3% increase from the previous year.
The “most mobile” year for e-commerce
Adobe expects U.S. holiday online sales to reach a record $240.8 billion (PDF) November and December increased by 8.4% from 2023. According to Adobe, this includes a projected record $128.1 billion in mobile device purchases, with mobile accounting for 53.2% of online holiday spending. If that happens, Adobe says the 2024 holiday season will be “the most mobile season in history.”
Adobe expects online sales to reach $40.6 billion during Cyber Week (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday), making Cyber Monday the biggest shopping day of the season with $13.2 billion in online sales.
Another indicator of the strength of online shopping is the annual Survey on holiday spending of the Conference Board, a think tank. According to the study, 43% of U.S. consumers expect to buy at least half of their gifts online in 2024, while only 8% expect to buy all of their gifts in-store .
The Conference Board also revealed that consumers will spend an average of $1,063 on holiday-related purchases in 2024, an increase of 7.9% from 2023. This includes an average of $677 spent on gifts, an increase of 3.4% from last year.
According to the think tank’s research, 52% of U.S. shoppers plan to spend the same amount on gifts in 2024 as they did in 2023, while 23% plan to spend more and 25% plan to spend less than last year. That’s what it means.
$1 trillion a year?
Data and consulting firm Forrester Research predicts that total U.S. holiday retail sales (online and offline) will reach $1 trillion this year, up 3.7% from last year. Forrester expects online sales to reach $257 billion, up 10.1% from a year ago, accounting for nearly 26% of total U.S. holiday retail sales, up from 24.2% in 2023.
in report“Online retail sales during the holiday period will increase at a faster pace than the past two years, but slower than the average of pre-pandemic years, which was near double-digit growth,” Forrester said. .
“The 2024 e-commerce holiday season looks promising, but not exceptional,” Jitender Miglani, a Forrester analyst based in New Delhi, India, told Practical E-Commerce in an email. told. “Sales are expected to grow faster than the past two years, but slower than the double-digit growth seen before the pandemic.”
Miglani expects holiday sales growth to be “primarily volume-driven, not inflation-driven.” This is because “while goods inflation is near zero, headline inflation remains slightly above 2%, mainly due to higher services inflation,” he added.
Additional metrics
In other studies, projectionand economic data point to a bright, if not vibrant, holiday season for retailers.
- Consulting firm Bain & Company predicts online retail sales growth of 9.5% in 2024. This is a significant decrease from the 10-year average of 13.1%. However, Bain expects in-store sales to grow only 0.5% and total holiday sales to grow only 3%, which would be the smallest year-over-year increase since 2018 and 10%. This is more than 2 percentage points lower than the annual average of 5.2%. says Bain.
- Average hourly wages in the U.S. grew faster than inflation from September to October and year over year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The rate of increase in September-October was 0.1%. After inflation, average hourly wages increased by a seasonally adjusted 1.4% from October 2023 to October 2024, according to the agency.
- The BLS also reports that the economy continued to add net jobs at a modest pace in October following hurricanes Helen and Milton. The BLS reported that total nonfarm payrolls increased by 12,000 people and the unemployment rate remained flat at 4.1%. Health care and government employment continued to grow, but temporary support services lost jobs and industrial employment declined due to strike activity.
- Payroll processor ADP offered a brighter outlook. Job hunting photos than BLS. Private employers added 233,000 jobs in October, the most since July 2023, the company, which uses a different methodology than the government, said.
