Key Insights: Holiday shopping ecommerce trends and how your business can win brownie points

How businesses can buckle up for the early holiday shopping season

The global pandemic and its domino effect will fail to dampen the 2020 holiday spirit. In fact, our previous key insights have pointed towards the holiday shopping season arriving sooner than before. To help you out and give you some foresight, we’re shedding light on the trends and consumer behaviors that will give you a strategic benefit. 

Retail’s loss is ecommerce’s treasure

Ecommerce personalization software provider, Qubit surveyed consumers in the US and UK in July 2020 to identify shopping behaviors and more. 

Retail is bleeding as there’s depleted footfall at high streets and almost everywhere. Ecommerce is playing even more of a crucial role to cover up for instore sales drops with: 

• One in four people saying that 90% of their shopping is online
• In comparison to 2019, 44% more people shopping online 
• As of 2020, 2 in 3 shoppers have increased their online shopping

COVID-19 sure has crunched wallets and purses but brands still stand a better chance as 36.6% of consumers shop with more brands as compared to 2019.

Ecommerce holiday shopping types that will win more love

It’s a common belief that food and entertainment are two industries that would survive come what may. But what’s holiday season without roast marshmallows, turkey, lights, comfy new clothes, and happy faces of your loved ones? Just a regular day in a doomsday movie, right?

Exactly, when you’re thinking “holiday shopping” people naturally gravitate towards some different elements. These will be the winners for holiday season shopping:

1. Grocery
2. Fashion
3. Beauty

Favorites for targeting video advertising

According to leading streaming media intelligence, Conviva’s ‘State of streaming Q2 2020’ report, there has been a global increase in viewing time which, by device rose 63% from Q2 2019 to Q2 2020. Some key findings were:

• TVs saw a triple-digit increase as people tuned in natively within their smart TVs
• Global share of smart TV viewing more than doubled as viewing time increased 239% year on year
• Following TV at 61% were connected TV devices like Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Hulu, and others
•  Game consoles aren’t that game for advertising as they experienced a 55% increase in time spent streaming year on year

Viewership hit the roof in these regions:

1. Europe (134%)
2. North America (57%)
3. South America (35%)

Conviva also discovered some comparative key statistics of Q1 vs Q2 2020 that could optimize your video advertising targeting.

• Global ad attempts were 28% less
• The US targeted ads saw 22% fewer attempts
• Missed opportunities
• Ad durations were 4% shorter

Positive social media presence equals better sales

Social media in its essence and how people are consuming it have drastically changed since the global lockdown. You’ll be surprised to know that people are spending an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media. Plus, it’s a huge spread of multi networking that takes place across 8 social networks and messaging apps. 

Sprout Social’s survey data points out exactly why social media is seeing so much usage – the top reason being connecting with loved ones, you can only see this trend climb upwards with the holiday season coming closer.

So it’s basically, “Bon appetite” if you can serve up some great, relevant, tasteful content that will attract more positive impressions, purchases, and digital footprints to your ecommerce business. Why? Because 58% of consumers are more inclined to buy from brands that share similar values on social media.

Do not fail your audience and customers on social media

Delighting consumers is a financially and mentally rewarding experience but irking your target audience isn’t a sight you want for your sales and brand reputation.

Sprout Social’s data findings showed that consumers do not receive insensitive or irrelevant content and may even have their own form of activism in retaliation. As of July 2020, 36% of consumers said they would unfollow such brands. Bottom line is – if you’re not conscious of your social media approach and strategy, it won’t take time for your “retail” business to see consumer “retaliation”.

ClickZ readers’ choice for the week

It’s a delightful sight that this week our readers have been interested in exploring avenues for lead generation, uncovering our weekly key insights, and looking deeper into the mettle it takes to be a successful CMO.

1. What does lead generation look like in 2020?
2. Key Insights: Top 12 Marketing technologies, budgets skyrocket, and why B2B vendors lost business
3. What makes a successful modern CMO?