The 2024 holiday season is upon us. With it comes holiday parties, gift giving, and merriment, along with an influx of marketing campaigns featuring killer deals and limited-time product drops and bundles.
As a consumer, it can be overwhelming shopping for all your loved ones. If you are a business owner, it brings on an extra layer of pressure as the holidays can result in a serious lift in revenue as you near the year-end. A lot of retailers, online and brick and mortar, rely on this season to make ends meet — and more. It takes a whole year of planning to capitalize on the festive frenzy — and it’s worth it.
Instead of considering the holiday shopping season daunting, let’s look at it as an annual opportunity for businesses to maximize their impact during this peak consumer spending period and make positive operational changes.
With this in mind, we launched a survey to find out how consumers plan to shop this year so that businesses can set themselves up for success. But first, let’s take a look at what happened last year.
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2023 Holiday Retail Recap
The National Retail Federation’s (NRF) 2023 U.S. holiday shopping spending recap revealed that consumer spending remained high despite inflation. Sales reached new heights again at more than $964 billion, which was on par with pre-season predictions.
The NRF also reported that eCommerce sales accounted for more than 20% of total holiday retail sales, which confirms the continued shift toward shopping online. Interestingly, Adobe reported that a staggering 42% of online holiday shopping transactions were made on mobile devices and Cyber Monday’s online sales outpaced Black Friday.
Online shopping has ebbed and flowed, but post pandemic, shoppers have expectations for experience, speed, and security in their online interactions. With more consumers prioritizing the method, retail websites must make usability and experience upgrades to take full advantage of the holiday shopping season.
2024 Holiday Retail Outlook
We surveyed 500 U.S.-based consumers on their planned shopping habits to find out how and where they plan to shop as the 2024 holiday retail season kicks off. Our goal is to provide data-driven predictions businesses can use to prepare and capitalize on what is coming their way.
Online Shopping Prevails
The survey revealed that there will be an even larger shift from brick-and-mortar shopping to online transactions, with nearly 80% of respondents planning to shop online during the 2024 holiday season. Specifically, almost 50% of shoppers will do most of their shopping online and nearly 30% will combine online and in-person shopping.
This predicted surge in eCommerce underscores the critical need for businesses to ensure their websites are optimized to capture more online sales than in years prior.
We’ve outlined four key web-related actions that businesses can take:
- Test your site’s current performance and double check with your web hosting service to ensure it can handle increased traffic. Lean on your hosting service provider to help you understand what issues could arise during a surge in traffic and write out an action plan for how you and your team can quickly act to resolve any downtime.
- Check your site and page load times as it’s one of the driving factors for cart abandonment. If it’s longer than you’d like, then consumers will feel the same. Start by compressing images to improve page load speeds.
- Ensure that you’re using a responsive design framework so your site looks and works just as well across desktop, smartphones and tablets.
- Update your security settings and seriously consider investing in upgraded protections. Data leaks are rampant, and consumers understand its part of e-commerce, but it is important to do your due diligence to ensure their data and your backends are as secure as possible.
Taking these steps can help businesses effectively capture and convert the anticipated growing number of online shoppers this holiday season.
Cyber Monday Emerges as Equally Important as Black Friday
While Black Friday will remain a major catalyst for holiday shopping sales, the survey confirmed that Cyber Monday has emerged as equally important for businesses that are attracting mid-season shoppers. A one-time positive online shopping experience could turn these deal-driven shoppers into loyal customers.
It’s also important to remember that brick-and-mortar shoppers often encounter out of stock issues and sales teams will order via the brand’s website or point the customer to the website while at the store. This means that even the most committed in-person shoppers may encounter your site for the first time.
With nearly 60% of respondents aged 46 and up, a demographic with significant purchasing power, businesses should focus on creating user-friendly websites and promotions to appeal to this group.
Here are web design tactics that can be used to cater to this group of consumers:
- Large, legible fonts and high-contrast text for readability
- Simple menu structure and high-performing search functionality for finding products quickly
- Voice search and a virtual shopping assistant can help those who aren’t as tech-savvy
- Offer add-ons and other suggested products during the checkout process based on this group’s browsing history or past purchases
- Reduce the number of steps required to complete a purchase and offer guest checkout options
- Consider integrating popular payment methods like digital wallets to cater to diverse customer preferences
“Online shopping isn’t a new concept anymore. Most consumers these days rely on it for holiday and non-holiday shopping alike, and any retailer who doesn’t have a fast, responsive, and mobile-friendly online store is really just leaving money on the table,” said HostingAdvice expert Christian de Looper.
“Such a site isn’t just helpful for the holiday season, it can help play a big role in yearlong sales.”
Preparation for the Online Holiday Shopping Season
The 2024 holiday season is fast approaching. Consumer shopping data tells us that November and December are peak shopping months with Black Friday and Cyber Monday as the two eCommerce spending anchors.
Now is the time for businesses to prioritize their digital footprints as it is the key to not just surviving but thriving during the retail holiday season and beyond.
Methodology
In August 2024, we surveyed 500 individuals about their 2024 holiday shopping plans. The respondents ranged from ages 18 to 65+, with an average age range of 36 to 55. Participants were 56% female and 44% male. Additionally, 100% of the survey respondents were in the United States.
