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The stat: Shoppers returned 1.39 billion orders globally following the 2022 holiday season, a 63% increase year-over-year (YoY), per Salesforce. Holiday hangover: After a relatively strong holiday season, retailers are beginning to feel the weight of returns as inflation drives more consumers to return online purchases.

Mcommerce is the fastest-growing channel this holiday season, seeing 14.8% YoY growth. Use this chart:. Ensure your holiday marketing strategy offers online deals and promotions. Make a case for greater investment in digital. More like this:. Holiday Shopping 2023 (Insider Intelligence subscription required). Consumers plan to spread their holiday purchases across fewer retailers this year.

Methodology: Data is from the August 2024 LTK "Festive Forecast: 2024 Holiday Shopper Study." 1,125 US consumers were surveyed online during June 24-25, 2024.

And retail sales in the final three months of the year rose 6.7% YoY, which suggests that some holiday sales were pulled forward into October thanks to Amazon, Target, and others pushing consumers to get started on their holiday shopping more than a month before the unofficial start to the season on Black Friday.

Let's move on to our third round, third and final of the today's debate, holiday shopping. How early is too early? Sarah versus Rahul. "Consumers are split on when to start holiday shopping," writes Zachary Russell of Chain Store Age. A recent Veracast study found 44% of consumers plan to start shopping for the holidays in October or earlier. That's down slightly from 47% last year.

On today鈥檚 podcast episode, we discuss why now might be the exact right time for Meta to bring back live shopping, who would be the most likely candidate to buy Party City, and why Disney thinks that now is the right time to pull the trigger on a big change. Tune in to the discussion with Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Vice President and Principal Analyst Jasmine Enberg, and Vice Presidents of Content Suzy Davidkhanian and Paul Verna.

Holiday sales were strong. Core retail sales during the holiday season rose 3.8% over 2023, per NRF analysis of US Commerce Department data. That provided strong momentum heading into the new year. Consumers feel good. Consumer sentiment soared 13% in January to reach its highest level since July 2021, per the University of Michigan.

Tips to help retailers reach Gen Alpha, Gen Z, and beyond this holiday season. Why Klarna is making an omnichannel push ahead of the holidays. Early sales, BNPL use will help drive robust holiday spending growth this year. Cost concerns are top of mind for this year鈥檚 holiday shoppers.

I understand the push to pull the holiday season forward even into September, which seems kind of crazy to me, but they're not alone in doing that. I mean, Best Buy is also launching their holiday sale for members of their paid membership programs at the very end of this month. I don't know. It doesn't strike me as super interesting. And given that they declared bankruptcy, I don't know.

Article: What happened this holiday season and what to expect from earnings. Article: Amazon鈥檚 struggles give Walmart an opening.

鈥淕oogle will start testing its new consent workflow in Chrome right after the holiday season without warning,鈥� our analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf predicted. Why it matters: Instead of blocking third-party cookies wholesale, Google will offer users the choice to opt in or out. This may effectively result in consumers killing third-party cookies themselves.

Amazon Prime Day is a bellwether for the 2023 holiday season. Luxury spending decelerates as US consumers focus on savings and travel. Grocery shoppers still cutting back even as inflation cooled in May. Loyalty programs struggle to balance deals and margins as inflation lingers.

NBC News now expands: The service is bringing 24/7 free streaming to Mexico, Brazil as digital news consumption soars across Latin America.

Holiday shopping. Mastercard benefited from a flurry of holiday shoppers in the last months of the year. US retail and ecommerce holiday sales grew 7% YoY and hit $1.297 trillion in 2022, per Insider Intelligence forecasts. Tie-ups.

On today's podcast episode, we discuss the unofficial list of the most interesting retailers for the month of November. Each month, our analysts Arielle Feger, Becky Schilling, and Sara Lebow (aka The Committee) put together a very unofficial list of the top eight retailers they're watching based on which are making the most interesting moves: Who's launching new initiatives? Which partnerships are moving the needle? Which standout marketing campaigns are being created? In this month's episode, Committee members Analyst Arielle Feger and Senior Analyst Sara Lebow will defend their list against Vice President of Content Suzy Davidkhanian and Senior Director of Briefings Jeremy Goldman, who will dispute the power rankings by attempting to move retailers up, down, on, or off the list.

Holiday shopping likely also played a role, with many consumers likely leaning on credit cards to fund their gift purchases. US holiday sales hit $1.297 trillion, according to our Retail & Ecommerce Holiday Season Sales forecast. Why it matters: Card issuers are tracking increases in delinquency rates.

On today鈥檚 podcast episode, we discuss why Netflix viewers are spending less time on the platform, how the free ad-supported streaming players are getting on, and how a less discussed social platform has fast become one of the places Americans spend most of their social media time. Tune in to the episode with Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Principal Forecasting Writer Ethan Cramer-Flood, Senior Forecasting Analyst Zach Goldner, and Senior Director of Forecasting, Oscar Orozco. Listen everywhere and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

What it means for Amazon: In addition to giving the retailer a significant head start on the holiday season, Prime Big Deal Days also provided Amazon with the opportunity to flex its impressive supply chain muscle and highlight its Buy with Prime offering. Shoppers purchased over 25 million items with same- or next-day delivery, and embraced deals offered by Buy with Prime partners Wyze, ALT.

Core retail sales during the holiday season rose 3.8% year-over-year (YoY), per NRF analysis of US Commerce Department data, and online and nonstore sales rose 8.2% YoY. Nearly three in 10 survey respondents (29%) say their Q4 online sales were up over 10% YoY. That helps explain why 57% feel positive about their prospects for this year, including one-fifth (20%) of whom feel 鈥渧ery positive.鈥�.

TikTok plans to use steep discounts throughout the holiday season to lure value-oriented shoppers to its fledgling online marketplace. The big takeaway: YouTube鈥檚 efforts appear aimed at grabbing a larger share of the rapidly growing social commerce market; our forecast expects US social commerce sales to grow 26.3% this year, to $67.6 billion.

Why it鈥檚 worth watching: Q1 sales tend to favor Samsung, which launches models early in the year, while Apple traditionally earmarks September for new iPhones to capture holiday season sales. Apple鈥檚 shipments dropped 10% in Q1, with 50.1 million iPhones shipped, down from the 55.4 million units during the same three-month period last year.

And so I would assume that's probably going to be the case again this holiday season. Sarah Marzano (13:52):. And I think I would agree. I think when I was looking forward, there is, frankly... And holiday shopping will start before we know it.

The details: Amazon will open two new delivery stations in Connecticut ahead of the holiday season, per Chain Store Age.

TikTok Shop plans to heavily promote live shopping events as part of its Black Friday shopping strategy, and is offering creators incentives such as promotional credits to encourage them to host livestreams in the run-up to the holiday season, per Insider.

Rapid user growth highlights demand for decentralized, ad-free feeds, but scalability and monetization remain critical hurdles for long-term success.