Another Holiday with More E-commerce Spending The various forecasts for total holiday spending should make any retailer merry; however, e- commerce is poised to steal the show again, with many of the major research firms predicting another season of double-digit increases in e-commerce sales. According to Coresight Research, e-commerce will account for 16% of all retail sales, excluding automobiles and gasoline, compared to 14% during Q4 2017, and 20% of all non- food retail sales. Coresight Research also expects online consumer electronics and apparel sales to exceed their overall 2018 performances, at more than 33% and more than 20% during the 2018 holiday shopping season.

Holiday Advertisers Follow Consumers to Social Media Although, according to RetailMeNot’s 2018 Holiday Insights Guide, 90% of brand and retail marketers say they will use Facebook to reach shoppers during the 2018 holiday season, Instagram (which Facebook owns) may be the winning channel. The RetailMeNot survey also found 69% of retailers said they would invest in social channels, compared to non-mobile digital, 39%, and offline advertising, 37%. Salesforce predicts Instagram referral traffic will increase 51% for the 2018 holiday season, when the total social referral traffic is estimated to increase to 5% and Instagram will grab 20% of it, compared to 13% of 2017’s total of 4%.

It’s a Magic Time of the Year…for Mobile Shopping According to a July 2018 survey from Bazaarvoice, 65% of US Internet users said they shop online to avoid crowds, and another 62% said it saves them time. According to Mobify’s 2017 Q4 Mobile Commerce Insights Report, the mobile channel had a 19.8% increase in traffic and a 22.0% increase in revenue during Q4 2017. Based on Salesforce’s estimates, this trend will continue during the 2018 holiday season, as it forecasts 46% of all online orders will occur via mobile phones, compared to 44% for desktop.

Emails Are Still Strong and Potent Despite being the oldest digital advertising channel, email was very powerful during the 2017 holiday season, with major increases in emails sent: Thanksgiving Day, 78% more than the overall 2017 average, and November 29th had the largest increase, or 122%. Not only was there a much larger volume of sent emails during the 2017 holiday season, but the average daily read rate of 24% was 3 percentage points more than the overall 2017 average – and 52% of those emails were read on a mobile device. With Christmas Day 2018 a Tuesday, email volume Wednesday, December 19th may be the largest of the week, as was the Tuesday before Christmas 2017, reminding shoppers it’s the last time for free standard shipping of online orders.

More Gifts for Retailers the Week After Christmas As if the holiday shopping season wasn’t long enough, the 2017 season revealed a new opportunity for retailers – “Cyber Week II,” as Criteo called it in its 2018 Holiday Preview Report, or the week between December 26th and December 31st. During that week of 2017, online retail sales in the US increased 46%, as consumers were eager for closeout deals and to redeem the gift cards they received. During “Cyber Week II” of 2017, New Year’s Eve day had the highest order value, or $146, and the highest unit price, or $54; however, all 7 days of the period generated very good to excellent performance metrics.

Advertising Strategies Help your prospects and clients forge an advertising campaign for the week between Christmas and New Year’s that highlights closeout deals and specific assistance from store associates, so customers can easily redeem gift cards. As has been suggested in many Advertising Strategies, advertisers must use more of their TV and other traditional media ad content to motivate consumers to visit their Websites and social media pages to capture more of the audience who prefer to shop there. Demonstrate your comprehensive media expertise by helping prospects and clients develop an omnichannel approach to their holiday advertising. It is no different than the traditional approach of targeting the same audience with TV, radio and print to increase awareness.

New Media Strategies According to the research in the Profiler, holiday advertisers may generate more traffic and sales with the use of Instagram and promoting referrals with incentives for those who refer their stores to other Instagram followers. Email campaigns can be created to drive shoppers to their mobile devices and local advertisers’ mobile-friendly Websites and social media pages to connect with a maximum number of consumers who say they prefer to shop from their mobile devices. Based on the data on page 4 of the Profiler, creating shoppable photos on social media pages, and especially for mobile-device shoppers, may be the easiest tactic to increase click-thrus to purchases.