Forget about Election Day. The holiday shopping season has already started, and retailers are anticipating a banner year for sales.
According to newly released data from eMarketer, low unemployment, strong income growth and high consumer confidence will combine to make the 2018 Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa shopping season an exceptionally strong one for retailers.
Both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retailers are poised to benefit.
This holiday season started, incredibly, on November 1. It is forecast to last until New Year’s Eve.
For this season, eMarketer forecasts that total retail sales in the U.S. will increase 5.8% to $1.002 trillion.
This is the first time holiday sales will cross the $1 trillion mark.
Further, 2018 shows the strongest growth since 2011.
Spending momentum will get an added boost from a favorable holiday calendar that features the maximum 32 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“Although some economic headwinds are finally beginning to form after mostly blue skies in 2018, we expect their effects to be muted until after the holidays,” eMarketer predicts. “Retailers have built up inventories for products affected by tariffs on imports from China and are not expected to pass on notable price increases to consumers until 2019.”
Brick-and-mortar sales for the 2018 holiday season will jump 4.4% to $878.38 billion, eMarketer says. That’s higher than the $863 billion projected in Q3, it adds.
Brick-and-mortar still represents the majority of holiday sales, at 87.7%, but its share has steadily declined.
“While ecommerce will continue to see strong double-digit gains, brick-and-mortar retail should be a particular bright spot this holiday season,” said Andrew Lipsman, principal analyst at eMarketer. “Not every brick-and-mortar retailer is thriving, and several have shut their doors this year, but others are really capitalizing on the strong consumer economy. Retailers are luring in shoppers with remodeled stores, streamlined checkout and options to buy online, pick up in-store.”
Ecommerce sales this holiday season will increase 16.6% to $123.73 billion.
That means ecommerce will represent 12.3% of all holiday retail sales this year, a figure that has been growing steadily.
“For retailers, it will be a battle for ecommerce market share,” said eMarketer forecasting analyst Cindy Liu. “We should expect more promotions and perks like free and fast shipping, as retailers compete against Amazon.”
Holiday “mcommerce” (sales via tablets and smartphones) is also growing, representing 43.8% of ecommerce this year. That equates to 5.4% of total holiday sales.
