The results are in: eCommerce brands are off to a great start of the official holiday sales season.
Adobe Analytics reports that online spending rose 22 percent, but unfortunately for brick and mortar retailers, their sales fell a whopping 52%.
While a drop in in-store sales was not unexpected due to the continuing impact of the pandemic, the numbers were still eye-opening.
Black Friday 2020 Trends
- Retailers are managing inventory as closely as possible with orders to vendors cut back
- There was less discounting in response to the fewer in-store visits and lower inventory
- The higher volume of online sales will likely continue to put pressure on shipping resources
- Consumers will see even more “Covid-19 Shipping’ advisements and alerts as they shop online
- Results for brick & mortar vs. online retailers will continue to steadily widen, as the pandemic advances and the end of the holiday shopping season approaches
We did see record YOY sales increases in online sales for:
- Walmart
- Best Buy
- Kohls
- Macy’s
This continued the year-long trend and somewhat offset losses from sales that were normally captured through in-store revenue.
And, to nobody’s surprise at all, Amazon did very well, with a 43% increase in sales compared to last year. JC Penney continued to set its own trends with a 1% drop in sales from last year. We have to admit, we do wonder what’s next for that storied retailer. Learn more about the data we’ve uncovered in Edison Trends, Black Friday and Cyber Monday Report.
2020 Cyber Monday Results
The good times for eCommerce continued to roll on Cyber Monday, with a jaw-dropping $10.8 billion (yep. billion, that IS with a “B”) dollars spent, resulting in a 15.1 percent increase in sales. The good news doesn’t stop there – that overall growth is expected to continue right on through the remaining weeks of the season. Online retailers are expected to see a total of $189 billion to be spent according to Adobe Analytics.
Want to learn more? Check out Retail Dive’s Cyber Monday draws $10.8B in Sales for more interesting analysis.
What the Future Holds
Most industry experts agree – there’s pretty widespread speculation that brick & mortar retailers will try to recapture some of the revenue they lost to online competitors by offering increased curbside pick up and remaining nimble when it comes to using in-store inventory for online purchases.
Last month we were pretty bold in our blog: Holiday Retail Predictions 2020, where we covered many of the emerging trends that are now coming to light. We’ll continue to keep you informed of all the developments throughout the season and into the new year.
If you’d like to offer your own insights or enquire about our perspective, contact us.
