Tradebyte’s Guide To prepare for 2022’s Holiday season

Let’s dive into market insights, current trends and consumer expectations for a successful holiday shopping season!

The Holiday season can often make or break the entire retail year. In fact, across Europe e-commerce volume increased by 69.7% in 2021. Many of our readers will be planning and preparing for holiday shopping sales as of now, and we’re here to help you keep it simple by sharing our findings from last year and our predictions for this year! 

This is a competitive time in e-commerce as brands and retailers offer special deals and discounts to gain shoppers’ attention. This presents an important opportunity to boost your sales as a brand. At Tradebyte, we make it easy for you to connect with a range of marketplaces present across the world so you can have your brand represented in the most popular and sought after channels and markets during the holiday season.

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A REVIEW OF THE HOLIDAY SHOPPING SEASON 2021

Looking into last year’s performance will help gain context and understanding of market performance over time, in order to learn from it and predict consumer behaviours for the coming year. So let’s look into the performance of e-commerce during the holiday shopping season last year!

People started to shop earlier

As has been the case year on year for quite some time now, in 2021 we saw 46% of shoppers start their holiday shopping earlier than usual, according to the National Retail Federation. This is mainly due to them wanting to ensure they get the products they want, as they worry about products being out of stock. In fact, this is a growing concern as 70% of shoppers faced with out-of-stock products switched retailers or brands instead.

Products that grew in demand

According to Salesforce, the products that saw the most growth within the first week of holiday shopping year-on-year were:

• Luxury handbags (+59 %)
• Furniture (+44 %)
• Footwear (+37 %)
• Fashion and Jewellery (+15 %)

High performance in GMV

Through Tradebyte operations alone, we were able to notice a significant boost in performance during the holiday shopping season last year. In fact, the holiday shopping season itself represented a 68% increase in GMV for Tradebyte marketplaces from 2020 to 2021.

OUTLOOK & TRENDS FOR THE HOLIDAY SHOPPING SEASON 2022

So, what will happen during this year’s holiday shopping season? Below we have gathered predictions based on industry research and surveys. Here’s a tip from us: keep a close eye on Amazon Prime Days and back-to-school sales, as these often show clues as to people’s buying behaviours and the type of products they want – it is an easy way to predict the trends for the holiday season to come

Inflation und E-Commerce

In light of today’s economic situation and as a result of inflation, online prices are up by 3.1% year-on-year as of August 2021 with no sign of slowing down, according to a recent report by Adobe. This is the complete reverse of the constant decline in prices (at an average of 3.9% year-on-year) witnessed pre-pandemic from 2015 to 2019. In e-commerce, this translates among others into an overall decline in the buyer’s purchasing power over time. What are e-commerce marketplaces to do about the rising inflation? First of all, make sure you have a healthy inventory to stay ahead of the competition as shoppers are likely to bounce off to another brand or marketplace if faced with out-of-stock products.

Secondly, make sure you are catering to the price conscious consumer. This year’s holiday shopping season will see shoppers prepared to buy in quantity for a good deal. In fact, an article by Drip analysing a recent survey shows that 29% of holiday shoppers plan to spend more than last year. People are more price sensitive, and therefore more likely to make the most of the discount season.

Customer demands

The prediction for this year’s holiday shopping season sees customers shifting their criteria when it comes to selecting brands, retailers and products. Here are a few aspects they will be on the lookout for:

• 47% of consumers say free shipping would influence where they buy gifts
• 45% of online shoppers would like to access virtual showrooms during the holiday season
• 58% of consumers say social media will influence their holiday buying decisions
• One third of shoppers plan to buy home products as holiday gifts
• 83% of shoppers will seek out sustainable brands and products this holiday season

Shoppers will buy even earlier

As mentioned in our 2021 holiday shopping review, we’ve seen that shoppers have been starting their holiday shopping increasingly earlier year-on-year. This trend is expected to continue for this year’s holiday shopping season, as shoppers wish to avoid price hikes. In fact, Cyber Monday is the holiday shopping day predicted to have the highest conversion rate. Research led by Statista shows that Cyber Monday has increasingly become the day with the highest e-commerce conversion rate – and this rise is predicted to continue this year. In fact, it is predicted that consumers will spend $12 Million every minute during the peak hour of Cyber Monday.