By John Haber, CEO, Spend Management Experts
According to industry analysts, the 2016 holiday season is expected to be a positive one. The National Retail Association anticipates retail sales for the season to increase 3.7% to $630.5 billion and the U.S. economy is looking more upbeat. The unemployment rate is holding steady around 4.9% and retail sales for September and October combined were the largest two-month rise since early 2014.
Even though expectations for this year’s holiday season are high, it looks to be different from previous years. E-commerce will likely take a bigger slice of retail spend and as such, delivery times will become shorter.
E-Commerce
E-commerce is playing a growing role in retail sales. Based on U.S. Department of Commerce data, e-commerce sales made up approximately 8.0% of U.S. retail sales during the first half of 2016, compared to 7.1% for the same period in 2015. Not surprising, double-digit growth in e-commerce is anticipated during the holiday season with eMarketer, a market research group, predicting U.S. e-commerce holiday sales to increase 17.2%, while Deloitte predicts a 17% to 19% increase.
Mobile commerce, or m-commerce, will represent at least 30% of e-commerce sales. The growth of m-commerce will continue to grow rapidly with eMarketer forecasting that U.S. retail m-commerce will increase 43.2% during this year’s holiday season.
