Ecommerce is a booming business, and brands who sell online should begin holiday sales preparations far in advance to ensure their operations can meet customer satisfaction.
While seasonality may dictate different holiday sales spikes for different ecommerce verticals, Black Friday and Cyber Week are still the biggest shopping and sales days of the year for many ecommerce brands. Forbes reported that customers spent $9.8 billion on Black Friday in 2023 which was a 7.5% year-over-year increase. Any recent economic discouragement in the US economy did not slow down spending habits last year.
Before planning your sales and marketing campaigns, it’s important to take stock of global trends to better understand how consumers might be buying this coming season. Here are a few trends and predictions to help high-growth ecommerce brands plan their holiday forecasts and sales efforts this year.
Ecommerce Holiday Trends TL;DR
- Omnichannel sales are now broader than ever, ensure your operations can support.
- How to prepare for demand surcharges and total shipping costs.
- The buyer journey is a great place to increase AOV, but needs to be quick.
- Get more sustainable, but watch out for greenwashing.
- Ecommerce is more international than ever, understand how you’ll respond to requests from abroad.
- Using AI to streamline the customer experience.
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1. Omnichannel Means More Than Ever
In the past few years, there has been an explosion of sales channels offered to ecommerce brands. From Tik Tok to Target.com to Amazon’s “Buy with Prime”, sellers have more options than ever to ensure consumers can buy products wherever they want online.
While having an omnichannel sales strategy may seem easy (and lucrative!) on the outside, the more channels that are added the more complex your operations. It can be difficult to prioritize resources for a growing ecommerce brand—is retail more important than DTC? Should subscription boxes get priority over Amazon orders? There is no clear answer.
The best way to get products in front of customers is by partnering with a fulfillment provider who excels at omnichannel fulfillment. They will be able to connect orders in a way that helps streamline your operations and quicken the time from purchase to delivery. Bonus points for a fulfillment provider that can get you perfect order fulfillment, to direct consumers and to retailers, every time.
2. Understand and Optimize Shipping Options
Shipping typically makes up 60% of the cost of fulfillment for DTC. Shipping costs during peak season has become a pain point for many ecommerce businesses as it’s commonplace for most major carriers to add demand surcharges. It’s important that you understand what services are most affected by peak surcharges before the holidays hit to ensure the ship type (speed) and all-in pricing is ironclad.
Understanding peak surcharges isn’t always simple; if you don’t have the bandwidth to optimize your shipping mix, lean on experts (like a 3PL) to decipher them for you. A reliable 3PL will help you choose your shipping service wisely and help ensure you don’t get a surprise bill after the holidays that eat into your margins.
This year, changes at USPS may impact holiday costs and delivery speeds. USPS is a critical backbone for many carriers, particularly hybrid services that primarily serve DTC brands. It’s essential to monitor how USPS changes affect the broader shipping landscape.
USPS is in the early stages of its 10-year transformation plan and has already seen positive growth in its shipping and package category. Last year, they revamped their parcel services with Ground Advantage, positioning themselves to compete directly with UPS and FedEx, which could increase their share of the ecommerce shipping market—a trend since 2020.
Recently, USPS leaders informed consolidators like DHL eCommerce, Pitney Bowes, and OSM Worldwide of their intent to renegotiate discounts based on where volume is injected into their network. These hybrid shipping services are crucial for ecommerce, and this change could have significant downstream effects.
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3. Streamline the Buyer Journey
Cart abandonment is a big hurdle for many ecommerce brands, and so many businesses rely on pop-ups, promotions, and incentives to keep consumers engaged and interested in buying more. But too many distractions can lead to customer frustration and cart abandonment.
Brands need to strike a balance between enticing customers and keeping the path to purchase simple and straightforward. Limiting the number of clicks it takes to get to the buy button is important for customer acquisition and retention.
Here are a few tips to streamline the customer buying journey and the point-of-sale process, in the hopes of netting more holiday sales.
- Make shipping choices very clear and simple. Too many choices can lead to decision fatigue.
- Automate as much information as possible so customers aren’t stuck populating everything manually.
- Be strategic about any final pop-ups or promotions you offer—A/B test to determine what works, and what might lead to cart abandonment.
4. Sustainable Operations, But No Greenwashing
60% of people in the US believe that many companies are only pretending to be sustainable (according to Mintel, a marketing intelligence agency). If your brand is touting big sustainability efforts, it’s best to practice what you preach. Greenwashing can be a turn off for consumers looking for reputable brands and honest products.
That said, creating a sustainable supply chain isn’t as clear as some think. Many consumers have a perception of what is better for the environment, but the actual data may show different outcomes. Plastic alternative packing materials, for example may make it appear that a brand is committed to environmental responsibility, but offering subscription products in refillable containers might be a bigger gesture and a more lasting sustainability effort.
What’s important to note is that eco-friendly efforts are only as good as the commitment your supply chain partners have to sustainability. Try to find partners who make environmentally friendly decisions throughout their operations.
5. International Reach
52% of online shoppers report shopping internationally (according to Forbes). The ecommerce business model can go global quickly, but as many shippers know international shipping and cross-border fulfillment is complex operationally, not to mention costly.
Ecommerce brands need to be ready to receive requests for international orders. Not all brands will have the ability to fulfill orders to ship internationally. While it may seem easy with only a few orders, there are many nuances to international shipping that need to be perfect. Before fulfilling orders to ship abroad, strong consideration should be made for the shipping and import costs, packaging considerations, carrier identification, and the possibility of returns management.
Cultivating a strong international fulfillment strategy is nuanced and requires reliable supply chain partners. If your brand is growing at a rate that you think you’ll be ready to start shipping internationally before the holiday rush, give lots of runway to establish a well-tested international strategy.
AI Powered Customer Experience
There are many areas of ecommerce that are now being enhanced by AI tools. The top ones include marketing materials, advertising, and product recommendations.
Here’s a breakdown of how AI software can help your brand succeed during the holidays:
- Adjust advertising for higher conversion rates or to reach the right audience
- Managing and updating stock levels
- Generative AI can help with customer service requests, product recommendations, or consumer questions
- Optimize product listings and product bundling
There are many off-the-shelf AI tools that are coming online, to ensure your sales run smoothly during peak season, properly test any new systems you plan to have in place during the rush season.
If you are seeking fulfillment support, value added services for the holidays, or are curious about working with a great 3PL, drop us a line.
This post was written by Maureen Walsh, Marketing Manager at DCL Logistics. A writer and blogging specialist for over 15 years, she helps create quality resources for ecommerce brands looking to optimize their business.
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