2011 Holiday Shopping Research and Trends

Keeping track of holiday shopping trends, research and statistics gives small business ecommerce site owners a solid foundation to plan a retail strategy to optimize for holiday shopping. The following 2011 holiday ecommerce research and statistics are from trusted industry sources and experts in the field of retail and electronic commerce.  11 Ecommerce Holiday Revenue Forecasts for 2011 Industry analysts are predicting a good -- but not great -- 2011 holiday shopping season for retailers. Overall spending is down and consumers are expected to be more conservative and controlled when it comes to spending on gifts and seasonal goods this year. Here are the top industry research reports and ecommerce revenue forecasts so you know what to expect in ecommerce sales this year. U.S. online retail reached $175 billion in 2007 and is projected to grow to $335 billion by 2012. Despite strength in overall online retail numbers, there is no denying that ecommerce is beyond its earlier years of unbridled growth. (Source: Forrester Research; U.S. Ecommerce Forecast: 2008 To 2012) According to the survey, 212 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 195 million last year. People also spent more, with the average shopper this weekend spending $365.34, up from last year’s $343.31. Total spending reached an estimated $45.0 billion. (Source: NRF; Black Friday weekend 2011) The report forecasts that ecommerce revenue will grow to $680 billion worldwide up 18.9 percent from 2010 revenue. Online retail commerce in the U.S. alone will grow 13.2 percent to $187 billion. J.P. Morgan anticipates that global ecommerce revenue will hit a whopping $963 billion by 2013. (Source: J.P. Morgan via TechCrunch; Global E-Commerce Revenue To Grow By 19 Percent In 2011 To $680B by Leena Rao) Eighty-four percent of consumers intend to spend less or the same amount while shopping as compared to last year. Breaking down the data, GfK reports that a stunning 40 percent of American households will spend less this year, while 44 percent will mirror their spending from 2010. Only 11 percent plan to spend more. (Source: 2011 Holiday Shopping Survey; GfK Custom Research North America) Consumers will spend less on gifts and seasonal goods this Christmas, according to the NRF's 2011 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey. The average spend is forecast to be $14 less than last year at $704.18. (Source: National Retail Federation via BizReport; NRF decreases festive season consumer spending forecast by Helen Leggatt) Fifty-two percent of consumers plan to spend $500 or more on gifts this season. Thirty-six percent said they will spend less than $500, and 12 percent indicated that they do not have a budget. Conducted from Sept. 7-15, 2011, the survey includes responses from 3,070 U.S. online shopping consumers (Source: Pricegrabber; Winter Holiday Shopping Survey) Deloitte’s retail and distribution practice expects total holiday sales to reach between $873 and $877 billion, representing a 2.5 to 3 percent increase in November through January holiday sales, excluding motor vehicles and gasoline, over last season. (Source: Deloitte; Deloitte Forecasts a 2.5 to 3 Percent Increase in Holiday Sales) Seventy two percent of U.S. consumers expect their holiday spending to be "careful" or "controlled" in 2011. While 88 percent of shoppers intend to spend the same or less than last year, 71 percent of those respondents earning more than $100,000 expect to spend more than $500 on gifts this holiday season. (Accenture; Annual Consumer Holiday Shopping Study) A whopping 71 percent of consumers earning less than $100,000 per year are planning to trim back their spending this holiday season. In addition, 74 percent of consumers will be spending less than $800 in total on the holidays and 73 percent will begin shopping before Dec. 1. (Source: SymphonyIRI Group; Holiday Shopping 2011) 2010 Research: The 2010 online holiday shopping season was a memorable one in which we saw spending rebound strongly from the recession of 2008 and 2009. Retail ecommerce spending for the entire November – December 2010 holiday season reached $32.6 billion, marking a 12-percent increase versus last year and an all-time record for the season. (Source: comScore; Ecommerce spending for November – December 2010) 2010 Research:  As the 2011 holiday season approaches, data from comScore's Q2 2011 found that ecommerce sales in 2010 reached $43 billion. Looking back at last year’s trends, these are the top holiday spending days, with Cyber Monday coming in at number one. (Source: GoDataFeed; Stand Out this Holiday Season) 7 Ecommerce Holiday Shopping Trends for 2011 From smartphone shoppers to categories of gifts and the dollar amounts consumer are expected to spend on holiday shopping, the following ecommerce research reports can help you get ready for this year’s trends. According to the survey, half (52.6 percent) of those who own a smartphone said they will use their device to research products, redeem coupons, use apps to assist in their purchase, and purchase holiday gifts and items. (Source: NRF; The NRF 2011 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey) Cross-border holiday sales have flowed in remarkably similar patterns during the past three years. If consumers follow the same cycles in 2011, daily sales peaks will be highly predictable – with one key exception: Gift buyers around the world may have an extra week to shop this year. (Source: FiftyOne; Will Faster Shipping Extend Holiday 2011?) While many traditional categories like clothing (48.2 percent) and books (47.3 percent) will appear on a majority of wish lists this year, one item will appear more often than a year ago: jewelry. As a potential sign that discretionary gifts may become more popular, 23.0 percent of people will ask for jewelry this year, a significant 10 percent jump from last year’s 20.8 percent. (Source: NRF; 2010 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey) The largest portion of a consumer’s holiday budget will go toward gifts for family members, with the average person expected to shell out $403.26 on kids, parents and other family members. Friends, co-workers and even the family pet can expect something nice this year as well; holiday celebrants will spend an average of $68.23 on friends, $21.06 on co-workers, and $23.39 on other gifts. (Source: NRF; The NRF 2011 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey) Retailers that integrate the power of the sensory experience in-store with relevant, timely information via their websites and mobile applications are well-positioned to lead the way this holiday season. (Source: Deloitte; Deloitte Forecasts a 2.5 to 3 Percent Increase in Holiday Sales) Online shopping scored higher in almost every respect than did shopping at walk-in stores in Consumer Reports' Annual Electronics Buying Survey. Respondents made 34 percent of electronics purchases online, which is more than double the percentage from just five years ago. (Source: Consumer Reports; Annual Consumer Reports Electronics Issue) The allure of the holiday sweater appears to have returned in 2011. When asked what items they plan to purchase as holiday gifts this season (respondents could select as many choices as they liked), consumers overwhelmingly chose clothing (66 percent). This was followed by 52 percent of consumers who said they would purchase gift cards; 46 percent opting for books, CDs, DVDs or video games; 43 percent choosing toys; and 31 percent planning to buy hobby-related items. (Source: Pricegrabber; Winter Holiday Shopping Survey) 4 Global and Cross-Border Holiday Ecommerce Research With U.S. customers expected to spend less during the 2011 holiday shopping season, more businesses are looking at global sales and cross-border shopping to increase profits. The following research reports provide a look at some of the facts, figures and issues surrounding cross-border ecommerce. International orders just don’t come back very often. Canadians led the world with a return rate of 8 percent across all merchandise categories. Australians and Asians were the least likely customers to return their purchases, sending back only 3 percent of what they bought during the past three years. Overall Europeans wound up in the middle, returning 5 percent of their purchases. (Source: FiftyOne; Cross-border Returns: Few and Far Between) As the U.S. dollar’s continued weakness attracts droves of Canadian and European consumers to American ecommerce sites, their numbers include thousands of power shoppers. Canadian power shoppers more than compensated for their relatively low average order values (AOVs) by ordering far more frequently than other power shoppers. As a result the value of Canadians’ total orders over 12 months actually exceeds the worldwide average. (Source: FiftyOne; Cross-border Power Shoppers: Where They Live, How They Buy) Brazilian shoppers significantly increased their AOVs during the holiday selling season. While AOV worldwide and in every other major market remained more or less constant compared to the rest of 2010, Brazil's AOV climbed more than 30 percent to $303USD during the holiday selling season. (Source: FiftyOne; Brazilian Shoppers Led Global Holiday Charge) According to the Consumer scoreboard, consumers' perceptions seem to be a major barrier to cross-border ecommerce. Among consumers who have already shopped cross-border, 61 percent were equally confident in cross-border and domestic online shopping compared to only 33 percent of the general population. (Source: European Commissio; The spring Consumer Scoreboard) 6 Expert Advice Guides to Get Ready for 2011 Holiday Sales 3dcart: Shopping Cart offers 7 tips to prepare for the 2011 holiday season. Shipwire: Ten ECommerce Sales Tips for Holiday 2011 by Aurora David. GoDataFeed: Top Holiday Strategies for Q4 2011 (Month-by-Month Tactics). IDS: Last-minute inventory and fulfillment planning tips from IDS. Marin Software: Online Marketer’s Guide for the Holiday. Stamps.com: 8 Tips for Holiday Shipping Recommended Reading: Is mobile commerce on your holiday 2011 list? Check out the highlights from 27 expert mobile commerce research reports to help you plan your strategy. Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.

Tips for Successful Mobile Text Message Marketing

According to Global Mobile Statistics 2011 , a mobile research report from mobiThinking, there are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers: that's 77 percent of the world population, and ComScore pegs the number of U.S. smartphone owners at 82.2 million people. Given the surge in adoption of mobile phone usage by consumers, it’s easy to see why small business and ecommerce website owners want to boost their marketing efforts with mobile marketing (SMS marketing) techniques. When is Mobile the Best Marketing Choice? All types of marketing strategies are not suited to all types of businesses, but text marketing is a good way to communicate with customers about your promotions, contests and other campaigns that are likely to interest younger mobile-enabled consumers. Jeff Judge, co-founder and CEO of Signal, a company that provides mobile, social and email marketing in a single platform, said it is important to remember that unlike traditional email marketing, mobile marketing isn’t designed for more general and lengthy “what’s new” type newsletters and longer promotions.  “Mobile marketing drives value and gets people to your kiosk. People pay for text messages so your marketing message must provide an immediate now or today value for customers, “said Judge. Another thing to keep in mind when choosing to use SMS marketing is to remember that mobile -- like social networking -- is not a marketing channel you can use once and then drop it. “Don’t treat text marketing as a test where you jump in and try it and then drop off,” said Judge. “If you don’t communicate with your mobile customers for a period of ninety-days to six months they will be surprised to get a message from you.  Just like Twitter, you need to focus on value to keep retention going.” Mobile Marketing Best Practices: Use Double Opt-In for SMS Marketing While it may not be any more difficult to build a text marketing list than an email list, you should start with a strong call-to-action to encourage immediate sign-up and also advertise your SMS program to build and grow your list.  Judge said it is best to put your mobile program details on the main page of your website, in emails and also to make it option in Web-based member profile forms. The easier you make it for customers to opt-in to mobile, the more subscribers you’ll get. One reason businesses have difficulty growing a mobile marketing list is because their SMS program may not be consistent with the business. “It might be that mobile isn’t suited to your demographic. Perhaps your demographic wants to use an app and not text,” said Judge. “To be successful you need to understand your customer base and understand the composure. “ Mobile carriers have a strict set of guidelines that regulate the SMS marketing industry.  With SMS, opt-in customers send a text message, typically a keyword, to a short code. For example the call-to-action is something like: “text commerce to 12345.” “This is a single opt-in experience, but best practice is to send that customer a message when the mobile phone number is added to confirm he or she wants to receive mobile communications from you. A double opt-in ensures compliance with guidelines and confirms that this person really is interested in participating in your program,” said Judge. He also said that if you’re not following those basic principles of SMS marketing, then you might see high growth but you’ll also see a high percentage of “mistakes” that quickly leave the program. 9 Tips to Get You Started with Mobile Marketing Jeff Judge offered the following tips to take some of the guesswork out of SMS marketing for small business and ecommerce site owners looking to get started with text messaging customers. Keep it simple and determine what you are trying to drive with this mobile message. Consider mobile in combination with other channels and post across mobile, Facebook, Twitter, email and any online communications channel you use. Remember that customers pay for text messaging, so don’t send a lot of messages. One or two per month is plenty. Use a single marketing platform to obtain reporting across all your marketing channels (e.g. email, social and mobile). Make sure your mobile message contains an immediate value (e.g. a promo or contest entry “now”). Use a strong call to action (CTA) in mobile marketing messages that is consistent with your customer demographic. Make your mobile SMS easy for customers to opt-in (e./g. scan a QR code or text a simple code to a number). Enforce a double opt-in for mobile subscribers. After the consumer has opted-in send a confirmation message. Advertise your mobile subscription everywhere you do business -- your website, email newsletter, store kiosk -- anywhere you do business. Learn about customers (e.g. let customer manage profiles on the web) so you can segment your mobile marketing list for specific communications. More Mobile and Marketing Small Business Ecommerce Tips Looking to get a better handle on integrating mobile into your small business ecommerce marketing plan? Try these mobile marketing and mobile commerce tips and guides for small business ecommerce sites: Mobile Commerce: iPad and Tablet Shoppers Buy More Mobile Commerce Research for Online Retailers 3 Consumer Shopping Trends Online Retailers Need to Know Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.

EBay Set to Launch Open X.Commerce Platform Today

EBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) is set to launch its new X.Commerce open platform today at the X.commerce Innovate Developer Conference in San Francisco (October 12-13). The X.commerce platform is a combination of technology assets and developer communities from within the eBay portfolio. Under its X.Commerce banner eBay is basically taking all the APIs and the developer communities that have been built up around many of the “eBay Inc. assets” (including PayPal, Magento, WHERE, Zong, RedLaser, GSI , Milo and others) and centralizing these technologies. The goal is to make it easier for ecommerce software developers to use the assets to deliver solutions for social, local, digital and mobile commerce. “In the past year we’ve been hearing eBay talk about the mega-trends that are fundamentally changing what the relationship between buyer and seller means," said Anuj Nayer director of communications for PayPal. "Things like the mobile phone, the increasing blur between online and offline shopping and social commerce are all impacting this relationship," Most purchases now touch the Web at some point and while most mammoth-size retailers have the means to use new and innovative technology, the smaller retailers often find it difficult to compete. There is where X.Commerce comes in – it's a way to help retailers connect with ecommerce software developers and to provide the t echnologies that consumers now expect a retail business to offer.  “For the first time ever it’s the developers creating the ecommerce solutions,” explained Nayer. EBay has a number of properties that have a developer-based community and APIs to fuel the new X.Commerce business. PayPal’s own developer community gained popularity in 2009 when PayPal opened up its APIs. Earlier this year, eBay also acquired the ecommerce platform, Magento, with its development community of more than 760,000 people. Developers who want to work with just one product, like the Magento API for example, still have that option, but in the X.Commerce ecosystem those developers can also take advantage of all the other APIs and developer communities from eBay and other X.Commerce partners. While eBay has impressive assets to launch its X.Commerce ecosystem, it is expected that retailers will have needs that eBay doesn’t have a product for, like SEO and analytics. To meet these potential requirements of merchants, Nayer told Ecommerce-Guide that X.Commerce is open to any tech company that wants to be a part of the ecosystem and provide merchants of all sizes and developers with easy access to their cutting-edge technologies. At the Innovate Developer Conference today, eBay President and Chief Executive Officer, John Donahoe will officially unveil eBay’s new X.Commerce commerce strategy to developers, systems integrators and merchants.  A number of announcements are expected to be made that will detail eBay's growing list of partners, including Adobe, Kenshoo and Outright. VirtualPiggy, among other ecommerce businesses, has already announced that its secure online accounts service can be integrated into eBay's Magento platform, allowing any merchant using the X.Commerce framework to have access to VirtualPiggy. Early reports also suggest that eBay plans to deepen its relationship with social network leader Facebook and that PayPal will announce PayPal Access, a new identification service that will let shoppers log on to participating retail sites and pay with their PayPal username and password. Keynote speakers at the conference include Blake Mycoskie (Founder, TOMS Shoes), Katie Burke Mitic (Platform Marketing, Facebook), Chris Bangle (former head of design at BMW) and Marshal Cohen (author of Buy It!).  “One of the best things about X.Commerce is that it levels the playing field for smaller retailers, allowing them to compete by offering innovative tech services,” Nayer said. “With X.Commerce it’s easier for them to work with developers to bring their investment online, and they don’t have to do much to integrate it to make it a reality.” Nayer said that the smaller retailers will need to work with a developer partner to make it happen, but they won’t need a full IT infrastructure to support it. The platform, while touted as being open, developer-friendly and an opportunity for merchants lagging in ecommerce technology, will benefit eBay if merchants and developers in the X.Commerce ecosystem use any of eBay's assets. Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.