Predicting Holiday Sales by the Stats

Holiday shoppers are expected to spend $83 billion in the next several weeks. How big will your slice of the pie be? According to a recent report, some of that depends on how you manage your online assets. 

The report stems from Adobe’s Marketing Cloud. You know Adobe—the company that helps you read PDFs thanks to programs (that always seem to need an update) like Acrobat Reader. But what you might not know is that Adobe has a hand in nearly everything creative that defines the internet. Many advertisements are crafted using their other products, like Photoshop or Illustrator. Websites, too, are often laid out in Dreamweaver. And the list goes on … icons and apps, videos and magazines. The company is ubiquitous with creativity and marketing, so when their annual Holiday Spending Report comes out, it carries some weight.

Marketing Cloud is Adobe’s analytics, advertising, social media and targeting software. And by using data from from about 80 percent of the top 100 online retailers in the U.S., Marketing Cloud made some observations and predictions:

• 57 percent of online shoppers on Thanksgiving Day ordered product from a mobile device.
• 37 cents for every dollar spent changes hands on a mobile device.
• Apple users outspend Android users an average of 22 cents to per dollar to 7 cents per dollar
• Estimated spending on Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year will equal $7.3 billion. (Cyber Monday tops the list at $3 billion, or $1.2 billion more than Black Friday.)
• Total holiday season spend is estimated to be $83 billion.
• Consumers are three times more likely to find a deal through a banner ad versus search.
• 14 percent of consumers will find deals on social media.

OK. Cool stats. But what does that mean for your business?

The overall theme is, of course, that consumers love convenience. It’s no coincidence that mobile devices are overtaking desktop computers in holiday sales. People are lazy. If they can order a gift from the sofa, why get up and walk to the computer? It may be a 50 foot difference in some households, but it’s a difference that might equate to $50 or $500 spent at your store.

“But we don’t have an online store,” you say. You should. Smart inventory systems and eCommerce developers have never been more plentiful. But even in the absence of your own unique online store, you can take a few lessons from Adobe’s research to build something creative of your own.

Remember, it’s all about convenience. And conveniently, many anglers tend to constantly be on social media. It’s the way we find out about the latest big catch these days. You can leverage that—affordably—to your benefit. Get in tune with Facebook Marketing and place a few holiday ads out there for your store. If you’re on a tight budget and don’t have a graphic designer, try soliciting one from a website like Fiverr.

Get out there and gain some momentum online.

If Adobe is right, you could be missing a serious piece of an $83 billion pie if you don’t.