Digital marketing agency is cautiously optimistic that this year's e-commerce sales will be high


PRINCETON, N.J., Sept. 21, 2023 - In advance of what is anticipated to be the first AI-powered holiday season, digital marketing agency NetElixir released its 2023 holiday e-commerce marketing calendar alongside its e-commerce growth forecast. Their data forecast suggests that aggregate e-commerce sales will increase 9% YoY in the November to December holiday shopping period compared to last year's sales data, with total online sales likely to exceed 20% of total retail sales in the nation.

"We remain cautiously optimistic that e-commerce sales will grow by almost double digits this year," says Udayan Bose, Founder and CEO at NetElixir. "The team and I predict a stronger growth trajectory than we would have said maybe three months back. One key driver of this forecast is the stronger-than-expected back-to-school sales results. Despite uneven category growth, we believe that this holiday season will prove a turning point for certain categories to regain the momentum they may have lost in the first half of the year. Overall, it is important to think about how you will get creative during this longer holiday season and elevate those sales events to benefit from demand spikes as customers search for the most attractive deals."

The key trends that will drive 9% YoY growth include:

Shoppers are willing to wait for attractive deals. Brands should plan strategic promotions to continually lure in shoppers to maintain a balance of sales between an early start and the extra days between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.
The second Amazon Prime Day (Early Access) in October has become a new norm to kickstart holiday shopping; it is likely to be held on October 10-11, 2023.
The Customer Sentiment Index shows a positive upward trend throughout the last few months of 2023 and should carry into the holiday season.
Marketplaces will account for 55-58% of total online sales this year.
Our annual Holiday E-Commerce Marketing Calendar offers a detailed breakdown of the anticipated online sales volume on crucial days throughout the holiday season. Weekly insights are as follows:

Week of November 12: Holiday deals will start even earlier this year, spurred by sales events.
Week of November 19: Deep discounting will not be limited to blockbuster days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday; expect week-long promotions starting the Monday before Thanksgiving. Retailers should look to get creative with category-level promotions and brand storytelling in order to entice customers to their products.
Week of November 26 and December 3: We anticipate some large retailers to test creative promotional strategies during these weeks, especially within their Performance Max campaigns. Mid-size and smaller businesses will need to be nimble and ready with their game plans to successfully compete.
Week of December 10: BNPL (buy-now-pay-later) models have been a prime driver of online growth and we expect a 20-25% increase in BNPL orders compared to H1 2023.
Week of December 17: The growing popularity of BOPIS has led to a continued increase in the percentage of last-minute, pre-Christmas online sales, especially on mobile. We expect online shopping volume to spike again this week throughout the 23rd.
Week of December 24: Post-Christmas sales promotions starting December 26th will influence the "Me-Buy" week, which will see more consumers shopping for themselves.
NetElixir has been accurately tracking holiday e-commerce sales forecasts for 15+ years. The agency leveraged its proprietary AI-powered customer intelligence platform, LXRInsights, to track and analyze real-time data of approximately 75 retail e-commerce businesses, ranging from small-to-mid sized businesses to enterprises. The team then utilized a proprietary forecasting model to convert the data into predictions across a predicted 500+ million unique website visits. Data collection spanned seven e-commerce categories (including apparel, beauty, consumer electronics, and more) that track mobile and desktop data, broken down by state, on-website sessions, website orders, AOV, website revenue, first purchase latency, and repeat purchase latency.

Current forecasts are subject to change. NetElixir's holiday experts assume that there will be a second Amazon Prime Day (Early Access) in October that will support an earlier-than-normal start to holiday shopping. NetElixir shared its full results and data analysis during the 2023 Holiday Readiness: E-Commerce Forecast Webinar, which aired on Tuesday, September 19th, and can be viewed here.

ABOUT NETELIXIR
NetElixir is an independent growth marketing agency for leading retail, DTC, and B2B brands. They drive more revenue at the same ad spend for e-commerce businesses by leveraging their AI-powered customer intelligence platform, LXRInsights. Through a combination of a high-tech and high-touch approach, the team can predictably identify, engage, and win high-value customers through targeted demand generation campaigns on search, social, programmatic display, and retail media channels.

Redefine your search marketing strategy with NetElixir.

NetElixir is headquartered in Princeton, NJ with wholly-owned subsidiary offices in Hyderabad, India. For more information, please visit www.netelixir.com.

CONTACT:
Shannon Kelly
shannon.kelly@netelixir.com

SOURCE NetElixir