Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

The 2016 holiday season will be drawn out as shoppers start buying online early and continue shopping even after Christmas Day, according to Adobe Digital Insights’ “2016 Digital Insights Shopping Predictions” report, which was released today.

For example, 31% of U.S. consumers say they will start their holiday shopping before Nov. 1, up five percentage points from a year ago, according to Adobe’s survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers.

Come November, consumers are expected to shop online throughout the season. The report predicts that 57 of the 61 days in November and December will surpass $1 billion, including a streak of 53 consecutive $1 billion plus days. By comparison, the existing longest streak of consecutive $1 billion days occurred during last year’s holiday shopping season.

The report suggests that overall online holiday sales will grow 11.0% to $91.6 billion up from $82.5 billion last year. Just three days—Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday—will account for $8.4 billion, roughly 9.2% of those online sales, according to the Adobe study....

Adobe Digital Insights predicts 2016 online sales will be up 11% and shoppers will be out earlier than ever. 55% of US and UK retailers say Amazon will drive the majority of their holiday sales this year according to research by ChannelAdvisor and Morar Consulting. The National Retail Federation expects US consumers to spend an average of $935.58 with overall holiday sales to rise 3.6% and online sales up 7% to 10%.

What’s Walmart’s holiday sales strategy? Value, price rollbacks and features, along with Santa’s helpers at checkout. UPS expects to be busy as well, shipping more than 700 million packages during the holidays, up 16.7% from 2015. Bestblackfriday.com, says Friday’s Black Friday sales may drop by 10% in-store to$9.2 billion though online sales may reach $3 billion, up 13%....