There is some data that came out last week from the National Retail Federation (NRF) gives us a great image for holiday e-commerce.
According to the organization, it’s estimated that non-store sales of $122.9 billion in November and December, a 12.6 percent gain over 2015. This is significantly higher than the NRF’s original predicted grown of 7-10 percent.
The numbers that came out of NRF are in line with what others are reporting as well. Adobe has pegged holiday e-commerce growth at 11 percent for the holidays. It was estimated by Slice, a retail analytics firm, that there was a 20 percent year-over-year gain in online holiday sales.
It seems that a common theme that has made its way through this year’s holiday shopping analysis is the value of an omnichannel approach (this is when you have both a physical and online store with multiple ways for customers to shop. The president and CEO of NRF, Matthew Shay called out the success of those companies in the announcement:
“There has been a lot of talk about online versus in-store retail in the past few months, but that comes from people who don’t realize that online and retail today are the same thing,” Shay said. “In the new distributed commerce world that allows consumers to buy any product, anytime, anywhere, it really doesn’t matter whether a customer shops in a company’s store or on its website or mobile app. It’s all retail. Today’s retailers sell to shoppers any way they want to buy.”
The holiday retail sales, both online and offline were up 4 percent year-over-year, according to the NRF. This doesn’t even include restaurant, automobile and gas sation sales.