The holiday shopping season is one of the most

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competitive times of the year for retailers, but they also have a big opportunity to drive sales and acquire new customers… The majority of retailers look for ways to extend the holiday season as late as possible, but can face challenges in delivering a physical product in time. Personalized promotions and pushing gift cards are a good way for retailers to continue momentum and stretch this success into the post-holiday season.” – Dave Richards, global managing director, Accenture’s Retail practice.

Volusion Holiday Sales Trends

Holiday ecommerce sales will increase 9% for small-to-medium sized businesses.
Some industries are expected to outperform the general projection of 9% holiday growth. Top-performing small businesses will include arts and crafts merchants and home and garden.
“One big driver for this year’s holiday rush will come from mobile commerce, which further shows just how quickly consumers are diversifying their usage of devices when shopping online. In the second quarter of 2014 alone, Volusion merchants saw a 23% growth in mobile sales. One important thing to note, however, is that mobile still accounts for less than 15% of ecommerce sales, with the majority of purchases coming from desktop devices. In other words, mobile definitely matters, but your main ecommerce site will serve as your bread and butter for online sales this holiday season.” – Volusion

Nielsen 2014 Holiday Sales Forecast via USA Today

Minority consumers – Hispanics, African Americans and Asian Americans – will boost holiday sales more than the general population this Christmas, acting as a central driver of seasonal spending.
African Americans plan to spend 17% more on holiday items, and both Asian Americans and Hispanics plan to spend 13% more.
Middle income consumers (household income under $50K) will spend an average of 12% more than last year on holiday items vs. 8% more for consumers exceeding household incomes of $50K
Asian Americans are expected to exceed all consumers in online holiday shopping (one in four compared to one in five mainstream consumers).
While multicultural consumers expect to spend considerably more mexico phone number list during the holiday season, 70% will “wait until later in the season” to do majority of their shopping.
All shoppers will spend 12% more on gift cards; 10% more on electronics and 10% more on toys
“This is a wake-up call… Holiday is just a reflection of what’s happening across the larger consumer retail landscape. This will continue well beyond the holiday season.” – James Russo, vice president of consumer insights at Nielsen. ”

To get your business in tip top shape for the busy holiday season based on all these findings, check out the following resources:

4 Steps to Prep Your Search Engine Marketing for the Holidays
3 Ways to Wrap up Retail Website Sales this Holiday Season
25 Holiday Email Subject Lines That Shine
Participate in Free Shipping Day and Grow Your Biz
The Everything Holiday Website
A Handy Holiday Marketing Calendar
The Top 20 Most Effective Holiday Subject Line Words
Big Ideas to Make the Most of Small Business Saturday
What are your thoughts on this year’s holiday sales forecasts? Do you agree or disagree with any of the findings? Let us know in the comments.

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