Online Holiday Shopping Forecast and Trends 2013

This week, Adobe released its Adobe Dig­i­tal Index 2013 Online Shop­ping Fore­cast, which focus­es on pre­dic­tions for this year’s Christ­mas shop­ping sea­son (defined as Novem­ber and December).

Although sum­mer hol­i­days may still be a recent mem­o­ry, the streets of the Unit­ed King­dom and Europe are already erupt­ing with hol­i­day cheer—as Christ­mas mar­kets, win­dow dis­plays, and lights across the region glis­ten with expec­ta­tion for the sea­son. And along­side the fes­tiv­i­ties, con­sumers are check­ing their pock­et­books while retail­ers are sharp­en­ing their strate­gies, prepar­ing for what Adobe is pre­dict­ing to be one of the most excit­ing growth years in online Christ­mas shopping.

2013 will be the year of mobile for Europe—with a 68 per­cent year-over-year increase from last year expect­ed in mobile online sales, and an expec­ta­tion to meet or sur­pass US mobile hol­i­day sales by 2014 if the growth con­tin­ues. Retail mar­keters, are your cam­paigns opti­mised for mobile? It is no longer a lux­u­ry, but vital to invest in one this hol­i­day season—more on this later.

Let’s also take a look at where and when the most dol­lars will be spent online, as a keen under­stand­ing of this activ­i­ty will arm you with the timeli­est and most effec­tive mar­ket­ing strategies.

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While Cyber Mon­day (2 Decem­ber) in the Unit­ed States comes as no sur­prise, in places like France we’re see­ing an expect­ed peak after Christ­mas on 8 Jan­u­ary (145 per cent high­er online sales vs. aver­age dai­ly online sales), due to les sol­des win­ter sales which run each year from ear­ly Jan­u­ary to mid-Feb­ru­ary. Inter­est­ing­ly, retail­ers in the Nordics can also expect an even high­er increase in online sales on their peak shop­ping day of 9 Decem­ber than retail­ers in the US on Cyber Mon­day (264 per cent vs. 250 per cent, respec­tive­ly), leav­ing some work to do for Nordic mar­keters in spruc­ing up their online retail strate­gies. The high­est gross­ing online shop­ping day in Europe as a whole is fore­cast to be Decem­ber 9th, where the dai­ly sales will be 2.74 times the 2013 aver­age dai­ly online sales.

In the com­ing weeks, we’ll take a look at more in-depth data from the Adobe Dig­i­tal Index 2013 Online Shop­ping Fore­cast, along with find­ings from a 2013 Hol­i­day Retail Sur­vey Adobe con­duct­ed about how con­sumers will think and shop online this hol­i­day season.

Stay tuned for more mar­ket­ing insights dur­ing this busy season!

About Mark Phibbs

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Mark Phibbs (@MarkPhibbs ) is Vice Pres­i­dent of Adobe Sys­tems for Europe, Mid­dle East and Africa (EMEA) Marketing.