Holiday e-commerce hits a record as shoppers choose phones over stores

Consumers sought out deals but inflation didn’t really tamp down demand during the season, according to the latest figures from Adobe Analytics.

This past holiday season, from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, online retail sales rose 8.7% year over year to a record $241.4 billion not adjusted for inflation, according to the most recent figures from Adobe Analytics.

Mastercard’s SpendingPulse, which tracks spending from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24, found that online sales rose 6.7% and in-store sales rose just 2.9%.

Shopping on phones also hit a milestone, with 54.5% of online transactions occurring there, up from 51.1% in 2023, according to Adobe.

“The 2024 holiday season showed that e-commerce is being reshaped by a consumer who now prefers to transact on smaller screens and lean on generative AI-powered services to shop more efficiently,” Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement.

Discounts drove sales throughout the season, however, especially on higher-priced items like electronics and appliances. The share-of-units-sold for the highest-priced goods rose 21%, with sporting goods in particular up 54%, electronics up 48%, appliances up 35%, personal care products up 32% and apparel up 10%. Adobe found that demand rose 1.03% for every 1% price cut, and this drove $2.25 billion of the season’s overall online spend.

Grocery (up 12.9% to $21.5 billion) and cosmetics (up 12.2% to $7.7 billion) had the strongest growth in online holiday spending, reflecting increased willingness to shop these categories online.

The number of AI-powered chatbot users remains modest, but consumers did display increased comfort with using them, especially for uncovering deals, finding certain items and getting recommendations. Generative AI chatbots sent 1,300% more traffic to retail sites compared to the previous year, according to Adobe’s report.

As expected, more consumers than ever financed their holiday spending using buy now, pay later options: These purchases drove $18.2 billion in online spend, nearly 10% — or $1.6 billion — more than last year. Cyber Monday alone hit a one-day BNPL record, up 5.5% and accounting for $991.2 million in holiday e-commerce.

Source: Retail Dive