Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know
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While retailers have reported mixed results in recent quarters, e-commerce sales are clicking into place for many, and they’re expected to keep picking up; 76% of shoppers plan to head online to cover at least half of their holiday shopping, per Bain & Company. We’re looking at ecommerce performance so far in H2, and what’s next as the holiday shopping season heats up.
Looking back: Retail e-commerce sales in the third quarter of 2024 hit $288.8 billion, up 2.2% from the previous quarter, on a not-adjusted basis, according to data from the Commerce Department released this week. Total retail sales rose 2% quarter over quarter to $1.8 trillion. Q3 e-commerce sales rose 7.5% YoY, outpacing the total retail sales gains of 2%, accounting for 15.6% of total sales.
Earnings across major retailers like Walmart and Target have been mixed, but both reported strong digital sales in Q3, with Walmart’s jumping 22% in the US YoY and Target’s up 10.8%.
So far in Q4: While Amazon’s first Prime Days fell in Q3, it said its second round of Prime Days was its “biggest October shopping event ever.” The Commerce Department reported last week that nonstore sales (largely made up of online sales), rose 0.3%, following a 0.4% increase in September, a cooling pattern from their banner month in August.
Bank of America said last week that online retail spending in October (excluding food and gas) grew twice as fast as IRL spending at retailers. And with a shorter post-Thanksgiving shopping season this year, many retailers—from Best Buy to Costco—have rolled out early savings events online and in stores.
Looking ahead: Though the discounts are rolling out early, 55% of shoppers said they’ll start in November and 16% in December, per Bain & Company. According to NRF, 131.7 million consumers plan to shop on Black Friday either in stores or online, while 72.3 million are gearing up to shop on Cyber Monday.
Adobe anticipates the holiday season bringing in $240.8 billion in online sales, an 8.4% YoY jump from last year’s spending of $221.8 billion. It predicted Cyber Week (Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday) will boost spending by $40.6 billion, up 7% YoY. Since 2019, spending on Cyber Monday has continued to account for a larger chunk of holiday sales, climbing to 13% last year, per Bank of America.