Americans spent a record $222. 1 billion online during the holiday season, according to new insights from Adobe Analytics.
Vivek Pandya, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said “resilient customer demand” was visible as the 4. 9% year-over-year expansion in online sales exceeded its expectations.
He said retail saw a boost after major food shopping days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, and is expected to remain steady for the rest of the season.
“I think what we saw in terms of the consumer was that they were very strategic and very cost-conscious this season,” Pandya said. “And I think what aligned nicely was that the online retail landscape this season, especially, had a lot of strong discounts for consumers.”
Discounts on electronics, for example, reached 31% of list value this year, up from the 25% seen in this category in 2022, according to Adobe.
They looked at a billion visits to online retail sites and analyzed conversion insights to see how much other people were buying, Pandya said.
Nearly two-thirds of grocery purchases this season came from five categories: electronics, clothing, furniture, groceries and toys.
Discounts reached 28% for toys and 24% for clothing, Adobe said.
The National Retail Federation hasn’t released a summary of the holidays, but forecasts online sales expansion of between 7% and 9%, with e-commerce sales expected to reach about $278. 8 billion.
The NRF forecasts an overall spending expansion of between 3% and 4%, totaling about $966. 6 billion.
The report of strong online sales this holiday season coincides with a new report from private lender WalletHub that showed a 15% improvement in its customer confidence index for December.
The WalletHub Economic Index, which began its monthly surveys in 2020, peaked last month.
“Consumers are much more confident now than they were a year ago,” Cassandra Happe, an analyst at WalletHub, said Friday. “Not only that, but they’re more confident now than they were a month ago, so it’s a smart sign that consumers are feeling more positive about what the long term holds for them financially. “
Pandya said e-commerce has room to grow, especially if discretionary spending benefits from more food, energy and housing.
Before the pandemic, they saw an 8% to 12% year-over-year expansion in purchases.
While a lot of folks have already made the leap to online shopping, it still only accounts for about $1 out of every $5 spent in retail, he said.
For the first time, more Americans shopped online from a mobile device than from a desktop computer.
Adobe has noticed an expansion in “buy now, pay later” offerings.
And curbside pickup remained popular with shoppers, being used only about 20% of the time when ordering online.
Pandya said the sidewalk, although below its peak usage levels during the pandemic, obviously has power.
It’s part of the omnichannel shopping experience that other people expect, where they can seamlessly meet their needs, whether in person or online. And sometimes, curbside can save consumers time and money in shipping their purchases.
Pandya said record holiday e-commerce spending was driven by demand, not inflation. In fact, Adobe runs a virtual value index that shows e-commerce values have been falling for more than a year.