Forecast: Holiday E-Commerce Sales to Increase 9% YOY

Digital marketing agency NetElixir has released its 2023 holiday e-commerce marketing calendar and e-commerce growth forecast ahead of what it believes will be the first AI-powered holiday season.

NetElixir’s data forecast suggests that aggregate e-commerce sales will increase 9% year-over-year in the November to December holiday shopping period, with total online sales likely to exceed 20% of total retail sales in the U.S.

"We remain cautiously optimistic that e-commerce sales will grow by almost double digits this year," Udayan Bose, NetElixir founder and CEO, said in a media release. Bose added that his team’s prediction of a stronger growth trajectory exceeds what they would have said just three months back.

“One key driver of this forecast is the stronger-than-expected back-to-school sales results,” he added. “Despite uneven category growth, we believe that this holiday season will prove a turning point for certain categories to regain the momentum they may have lost in the first half of the year. Overall, it is important to think about how you will get creative during this longer holiday season and elevate those sales events to benefit from demand spikes as customers search for the most attractive deals."

[Also Read: Consumers Look to Social Media for Holiday Shopping Deals & Discovery]

According to NetElixir’s forecast, key trends that will drive this year's growth include:

• Shoppers are willing to wait for attractive deals. Brands should plan strategic promotions to continually lure in shoppers with a balance of sales between an early start and the extra days between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.
• The second Amazon Prime Day (Early Access) in October kickstarts holiday shopping. It is likely to be held on Oct. 10-11, 2023.
• The Customer Sentiment Index shows a positive upward trend throughout the last few months of 2023 and should carry into the holiday season.
• Marketplaces will account for 55%-58% of total online sales this year.

NetElixir’s annual “Holiday E-Commerce Marketing Calendar” outlines anticipated online sales volume on crucial days throughout the holiday season. Weekly insights include:

• Week of Nov. 12: Holiday deals are expected to start even earlier this year, spurred by sales events.
• Week of Nov. 19: Deep discounting will not be limited to blockbuster days such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Instead, expect week-long promotions starting the Monday before Thanksgiving. NetElixir says retailers should get creative with category-level promotions and brand storytelling to entice shoppers.
• Week of Nov. 26 and Dec. 3: NetElixir anticipates some large retailers to test creative promotional strategies during this time, especially within their big campaigns. Midsize and smaller businesses should be “nimble and ready” with their plans to compete.
• Week of Dec. 10: Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) models have been a notable driver of online growth and NetElixir expects a 20%-25% increase in BNPL orders compared to early 2023.
• Week of Dec. 17: The growing popularity of buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) has led to a continued increase in the percentage of last-minute, pre-Christmas online sales, especially via mobile. NetElixir expects online shopping volume to spike again this week through Dec. 23.
• Week of Dec. 24: Post-Christmas sales promotions starting Dec. 26 will influence the "Me-Buy" week, which will likely see more consumers shopping for themselves.

NetElixir leverages its proprietary AI-powered customer intelligence platform, LXRInsights, to track and analyze real-time data of approximately 75 retail e-commerce businesses, ranging from small- to midsized businesses to enterprises. The agency says it then uses a proprietary forecasting model to convert the data into projections across a predicted 500 million-plus unique website visits.

Data collection spanned seven e-commerce categories (e.g., apparel, beauty and consumer electronics) that track mobile and desktop data, broken down by state, on-website sessions, website orders, average order value (AOV), website revenue, first purchase latency and repeat purchase latency.

NetElixir says its holiday experts assume that there will be a second Amazon Prime Day (Early Access) in October that will support an earlier-than-normal start to holiday shopping, per the release.