I work closely with retailers around the world on their large-scale digital transformations as a partner at Boston Consulting Group. As the holiday season approaches and the pandemic continues to evolve, many of my clients want to know what to expect.
Will e-commerce continue to grow at the same rate as last year?
While it’s still early, fewer U.S. holiday shoppers say COVID-19 will impact how they shop for the holidays this year — just 35% compared with 53% in 2020.
To help retailers better understand these changes, we phone number list launched a series of surveys in partnership with Google and Dynata to more than 12,000 U.S. consumers across all retail categories. Here’s what we found.
This season’s shopper will be more omnichannel than ever
During the pandemic, we saw a dramatic shift toward e-commerce. Looking closer, we saw that while the shift online was quick, e-commerce has plateaued as people seek more in-person experiences. In fact, only 14% of U.S. shoppers say they won’t be shopping in-store this holiday.
But as in-store shopping resurges, the role of digital in shopping cyberclick is a finalist in the measurement solutions has been cemented, with over 70% of surveyed participants reporting that their shopping journey involved online touchpoints. Digital will be a critical part of their journey, whether online or in-store.
How you can meet the moment with your marketing this holiday season
So what does this mean for your business and how should you adapt your holiday marketing strategy? Taking a closer look at the statistics at the category level, here are some tips BCG recommends retailers, whether they have stores or not, consider this holiday season.
Ways to improve your holiday marketing strategy: 1. Highlight shopping options based on category; 2. Evaluate the economics of e-commerce fulfillment; 3. Make your experience mobile-friendly; 4. Drive loyalty with existing customers and win new ones
Highlight purchasing options by category.
For consumers, the role of the store will vary depending on the america email list needs and product category offered. We found four main motivations that draw consumers to the store: convenience, immediacy, in-person experience, and product trial. We also found that product categories tended to align with these motivation pairs.
Convenience or immediacy motivates about 40% of people shopping at the grocery store, beauty and toiletries, pet care, health care, small appliances, home improvement and auto parts. We see this at Google, where searches for “now near me” have grown globally by more than 100% year over year.
