Salesforce, the global customer relationship management (CRM) giant has released its 2019 Holiday Shopping Report. This report revealed the data, trends, and insights that retailers and brands need to prepare for the 2020 holiday shopping season.
Overall, Salesforce data demonstrated a surge of 8 percent in digital spend over the 2019 shopping season, with $723 billion in digital revenue worldwide.
Top Salesforce 2019 Holiday Shopping Insights
To compile this report, Salesforce combined insights on the activities of billions of consumer engagements powered by Marketing Cloud, hundreds of millions of global shoppers that are powered by Commerce Cloud across more than 30 countries, and millions of customer service cases viewed in Service Cloud between November 1 and December 31, 2019.
The top retail trends and highlights for the season included:
- Brands push consumers to pursue holiday shopping early: Retailers made every day count by pushing out lucrative discounts and promotions earlier than ever with a later Thanksgiving and shortened holiday selling season.
- During the week leading up to Cyber Week, early marketing activity was a success with digital traffic growing 13 percent over the same period in 2018. The report revealed that consumers filled their online baskets but waited till the Cyber Week to place their orders, with digital orders up 9 percent over the same 2018 period.
- Guesswork for consumers eliminated by AI: AI-powered product and search recommendations drove additional revenue for retailers this holiday season, as 5 percent of digital revenue and 10 percent of digital orders came from AI-powered recommendations.
- All records were shattered during Cyber Week 2019: Cyber Week 2019 was a huge hit with global digital revenue growing 15 percent to $143 billion. Black Friday continued to be the #1 global digital shopping day. Across the world, Thanksgiving Day emerged as a major shopping event with sales showing an increase of 24 percent year-over-year to $20 billion.
- Last-minute holiday purchases were in: Retailers offering click and collect experienced huge gains despite the softness in late season buying as shoppers scrambled to complete their last minute holiday purchases.
- Digital traffic and orders were primarily driven by mobile: Mobile emerged as the number one device driving digital traffic and orders. Rob Garf, VP, Industry Strategy for Retail, Salesforce, said retailers saw success with mobile commerce, personalization via artificial intelligence, social engagement, and store pick up, removing friction in the ways shoppers browsed and purchased.
Read the Salesforce All Wrapped Up Holiday Report here.
