Salesforce today released its 2022 holiday shopping data, analyzing 2022 November and December shopping data during the Christmas season, consumers spent a sum of $1.14 trillion online globally and $270 billion in the US market.
Retailers offer Buy Online Pick Up In Store (BOPIS) facility to attract more buyers. Cyber Week deals and Buy Online and Pick Up In Store (BOPIS) supported retailers drove success in 2022.
“Retailers closed out the 2022 holiday season with stronger online sales growth than expected – driven in large part by U.S. demand, steeper discounts on peak days, and BOPIS options,” said Rob Garf, VP & GM of Retail, Salesforce. “Staggering return numbers show that consumers are still cautious amid economic uncertainty, however.”
Salesforce report data underlined the trends that drove the holiday season sales.
Holiday returns: That’s the biggest driving factor, the report data shows that the total order during this holiday season reached 1.39 billion, accounting for 13% of total holiday orders and a 63% growth in returns YoY. These numbers spiked six days after Christmas, with 16% of orders returned over that week — a 5% increase over last year.
Retailers got shoppers’ attention with discounts: After early in the season, retailers offer more discounts to attract more buyers. In the end, a 21% average discount compared to 19% the year prior. Top discount categories include beauty, skincare, and makeup, with an average discount of 29%. General apparel and handbags were the next most discounted categories at 27%.
Buy Online Pick Up In Store method works for retailers and shoppers: Nearly one out of every five online orders this holiday season were via Buy Online Pick Up In Store. The adoption by consumers peaked at 35% of all orders on the Friday before the Christmas holiday as shoppers retrieved last-minute gifts.
Social media referrals hit an all-time high: Traffic referrals from social media hit an all-time high during this holiday season, driving 12% of all mobile traffic (+23% YoY). Belgium, Italy, and the U.S. represented the countries with the most social media-minded shoppers.
Salesforce powered the 2022 holiday season
Despite economic uncertainty and changing consumer spending habits, brands and retailers around the world found success with Salesforce this holiday season:
- Commerce Cloud powered more than 220 million online orders while delivering fast, easy, and personalized digital experiences to shoppers. Digital sales powered by Commerce Cloud grew more than 6% YoY across the holiday season.
- Einstein served over 10 billion personalized recommendations in November and December and 9% of all revenue was influenced by shoppers that engaged with these recommendations.
- With Service Cloud, agents viewed or worked on more than 30 billion cases (a 20% YoY increase).
Note: Salesforce holiday insights and methodology– Salesforce analyzes aggregated data to produce holiday insights from the activity of over 1.5 billion global shoppers across more than 64 countries powered by Commerce Cloud, in addition to Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud data from retailers. Salesforce’s holiday data set includes 24 of the top 30 U.S. online retailers on the 2021 Digital Commerce 360 list and utilizes publicly available third-party data sources.
DATA SOURCE Salesforce