Salesforce: 8 Percent Increase in Holiday Digital Spend

(IDEX Online) - A report from CRM giant Salesforce revealed that digital spending increased 8 percent over the 2019 shopping season, with $723 billion in digital revenue worldwide. The report combined insights on the activities of hundreds of millions of global shoppers in over 30 countries using Salesforce tools. 

According to Salesforce data, digital traffic grew 13 percent over 2018. Many shoppers filled their online baskets, but waited for Cyber Week to place their orders, leading to an increase in digital orders of 9 percent year-over-year.

Cyber Week 2019 saw global digital revenue growing 15 percent to $143 billion. Worldwide, Thanksgiving Day emerged as a major shopping event with sales growing 24 percent year-over-year to $20 billion.

The report also shows the importance of AI-powered search, which drove additional revenue for retailers this holiday season, as 10 percent of digital orders and 5 percent of digital revenue came from AI-powered recommendations.

The figures also show that digital revenues fell 27 percent year-over-year during the week leading up to Christmas. This, says Salesforce, was likely because of a smoothing out of demand throughout the year—from shoppers buying gifts as early as the summer to going into physical stores to avoid hassles with delivery.

Retailers that offered "click and collect" saw big gains from shoppers rushing to complete their last-minute holiday purchases. Retailers offering this capability on their ecommerce sites saw 56 percent more active digital shoppers (someone who uses a site search, adds a product to cart, starts a checkout or completes a transaction) in the last five days of the season. Those retailers also collected 18 percent more digital revenue share after the shipping cutoff.

This was also the year of mobile shopping with peak days seeing up to 80 percent of digital traffic and 65 percent of digital orders come through a mobile device.

"Throughout the 2019 holiday shopping season, retailers saw success with mobile commerce, store pick up and personalization via artificial intelligence and social engagement, removing friction in the ways shoppers browsed and purchased," said Rob Garf, vice president, Industry Strategy for Retail, Salesforce. 

"Mobile certainly catered to people on the go this holiday season and in 2020 brands should be looking for ways to integrate this experience into physical stores for a true omnichannel shopping journey."