Holiday Season 2022 has seen many fluctuations as per analytics presented by Adobe Digital Insights. A general trend was observed – “As the rate of inflation surges, people’s shopping tendencies in the holiday season for retail items like electronics, sporting goods, toys and appliances declines.” This trend has casted a negative impact on the holiday-season-revenue-growth for online retail industry which is evidenced by this disturbing growth figure – “3.5%”.
Cyber week witnessed modest growth as deals got spread across the season. Its share in the holiday season revenue was about 16%. It has fallen down by approximately 4%. But, Cyber Monday 2022 broke all the records by reaching $11B for the first time in history. Talking about Black Friday, it witnessed the weakest growth of all the times contributing only 2.9% share in total revenue acquired in holiday season.
The cumulative online revenue gained in the months of November and December reached $211.7 dollars. It is quintessential to note here that 47% income accounting to $99.3 was contributed by smartphones which highlighted the importance of mobile marketing.
BUSINESSES TRIED TO SEE ADVERSITY AS AN OPPORTUNITY
The 2022 shopping season saw enthusiastic efforts of business people to make better revenues. They tried to entice customers by leveraging heavy discounts labels on online retail items, in the holiday season. Besides, BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) has played a giant role in convincing customers who were dicey about shopping things because of financial constraints. Such tactics have contributed in uplifting the revenues.
They incorporated every marketing tactic to bring maximum results by implementing marketing plans. Consequently, PPC campaigns, affiliate marketing and Emails drove traffic by about 28%, 18% and 17% respectively.
THE STORY OF 2022 GROWTH FALL
Let’s have a flashback at the beginning of 2022 – Everything was smooth; growth rates were witnessing an incremental increase. A villain named Inflation barged in and seasonal growth slowed at 3.5% YoY. The events got even rougher when consumers failed to receive cash injections and stimulus money.
Since consumers cannot put a full stop at their shopping tendencies for a longer time, a change in their behavior was noticed. Compromising with the circumstances, they agreed to shop for the products possessing a strong value proposition at a given price.
IMPACT OF HOLIDAY SEASON 2022 ON CURRENT YEAR
As 2023 is experiencing a price surge for grocery items and flight prices and interest rates are also increasing, it won’t be wrong to predict that consumer’s spending capabilities in 2023 will remain low.
It was observed that 1 in 4 online orders, which indicates about 43% of all the orders encountered in December 2022 were of BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store) nature. So, we can definitely expect that BOPIS will help to increase the revenue growth in 2023.
Some categories didn’t fall short of any demand or orders in holiday season 2022 like toys, gifts, jewelry, sporting goods, books, office supplies, art craft & sewing materials, home & garden related materials, appliances, pet products, grocery, apparel, tools & home improvement, electronics, baby & toddlers, auto parts, window and floor coverings, furniture & bedding. These categories are predicted to follow the same pace of being shopped in 2023.
As discussed above, online marketing tactics helped to fetch potential buyers in the holiday season 2022. By bettering these tactics, businesses can definitely aim for higher growth in 2023.
CONCLUSION
The effects of COVID-19 are still not over. The world is surviving hard to cope with them, particularly the business people. As rates of inflation are continuously going up, businesses are gradually falling when it comes to growth rate. The biggest impact of inflation was seen on Holiday Season 2022. Businesses tried their best to get over it by incorporating numerous techniques – labeling highest discounts on lowest selling items and facilitating users with BNPL. Such tactics definitely worked to some extent, but failed to meet the desired expectations. Kinex Media have analyzed the trends, consumer behavior and response to particular events. We’ll leverage such knowledge in framing ideal strategies for your business to ensure inflation doesn’t infect your business with poor growth.