Google Says the Holiday Shopping Season Has Started
I wouldn't put out any holiday season decorations all over the house yet; but, Google recently announced a surge in search volume for "christmas gift" and that people are already shopping for the holidays.
Google's blog post has a lot in it. Google partnered with a market research firm to run a survey that found out:
- 44% of shoppers have already started shopping for the holidays
- 86% of their survey pool planned to shop for the holiday.
- 1/3 of the survey respondents had already made holiday purchases.
(Note: we don't know the sample size).
Google goes on to show a Google insights graph for the U.S. search market showing a lovely ramp for the term "christmas gift".
I re-ran the data for Worldwide and as you may expect the ramp is paralleled worldwide with the largest uptick in the majority english speaking markets (U.S., UK, Australia, Canada). As a guest blogger I can't embed an image; but here is the link to the graph.
So what does this tell us and why is this important for retailers?
- Start your holiday marketing sooner rather than later.
- Holiday promotions may be well served NOW.
- Even if your inventory hasn't arrived yet, start your marketing and take backorders. I talked about this in a previous PC blog post for Holiday Import Timing
- Now is probably not the best time to be swapping shopping carts; but rather, tuning what you have and adding marketing power.
I'll blog again soon with more tuning tips for your cart and your product fulfillment.
The next question - Will holiday sales be better than expected? August was larger as Cash For Clunkers juiced August Retail beyond previous forecasts. Let's hope so; but, potentially plan on really trying some competitive offers to get sales this holiday.
Happy Holidays :-)
Nate Gilmore | Shipwire product fulfillment | shipping blog
This post is filed under Tools, Tips and Suggestions and has the following keyword tags: holiday shopping, holiday e-commerce, product fulfillment.
1 Comment
Shipwire eCommerce Order Fulfillment Service says:
In the physical space...container volume is picking up into the West.
This is a sign that retailers large and small are stocking up for the holidays. Not a lot of "cash for clunkers" impacting port volume so this may be a better economic indicator than what the Fed is putting out.
This is a good sign since volume has been down 30% over last year...I hesitate to say it...oh heck...I'll say it - "Greenshoot" for e-com :-)
Here is the link if you want the volume - West Coast US Port Volume UP
Cheers, Nate Los Angeles Warehouse
