BEIJING, CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / October 24, 2019 / With the holiday shopping season just around the corner, data analysts at CouponBirds reveal their predictions for 2019's hottest sales and what kind of shopping opportunities shoppers want. Although consumers face a shorter shopping season this year than in 2018, they're projected to spend more overall. Based on historical data and current retail trends, the big sellers of 2018 remain top-ranking products for 2019.
Shorter Holiday Shopping Season For 2019
This year, Thanksgiving falls on November 28th, which means consumers have just 26 days to get their shopping done for Christmas compared to last year's 32-day shopping season. This is the shortest shopping season since the 2015 launch of CouponBirds, and the company's analysts predict consumers will be on the hunt for special deals and trending products earlier than usual.
According to Adobe Analytics, which measured how many page visits resulted in consumers seeing an out-of-stock message, product shortages led to retailers losing $120 million on Thanksgiving and $177 million on Black Friday in potential sales opportunities for 2018. Consumers were met with this out-of-stock message 3.3% of the time on Thanksgiving and 2.8% on Black Friday, and while Cyber Monday products were out of stock only 2.4% of the time, that's above the season average of 2.1%.
Merchant and retail partners who work closely with CouponBirds confirm they will advertise their Black Friday deals starting late September and early October to help shoppers prepare for the short season. CouponBirds advises partners to increase stock to meet the holiday demand to avoid shortages that lead to a loss from potential sales. Shipping carriers and fulfillment centers should also ready themselves for a frenzied season where customers expect fast turnaround times on their orders.
2019 Holiday Sales To Rise 4% From 2018
The National Retail Federation (NRF) reports it expects holiday retail sales for the 2019 holiday shopping season to increase between 3.8% and 4.2% over 2018, a total between $727.9 billion and $730.7 billion for 2019. This includes online and related non-store sales, which are expected to increase between 11-14%, a rise from last year's $146.5 billion that projects sales to be between $162.6 billion and $166.9 billion.
Although the uncertainty from an escalating trade war with China casts a shadow over sales predictions for 2019's holiday season, CouponBirds holds a positive outlook that these figures will hold steady and notes that merchants are stocking up and eagerly preparing for a busy shopping season.
"Last year, we saw a 2.1% rise in holiday sales with $701.2 billion in total. However, we all know that last year the US economy experienced many ups and downs before the shopping season with the government shutting down, delays in data collection and market volatility. That's why the NRF predicts that the growth rate will be back at a normal level and 80% of our partner merchants say they will offer their biggest discounts of the year during Thanksgiving week," CouponBirds Account Director Fiona Dai explains.
2019 Trends Include Popular Influencer Brands
CouponBirds predicts many of 2018's top-selling big-ticket items will still be hot products for the 2019 holiday season:
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Amazon Echo Dot
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AncestryDNA Kits
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6-Quart Instant Pot Multi-Use Programmable Pressure Cooker
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Bose QuietComfort 25 Acoustic Noise Canceling Headphones
The retail giants aren't the only brands making their mark during the holiday shopping season. During 2018 Black Friday, stores and products owned by YouTube and Instagram influencers were part of the top 20 most-visited brands for couponers searching CouponBirds.com for special discounts. Sisters Apparel, Dote Shopping and Fanjoy made it to the top 10. Data shows consumers purchase their favorite influencer's brand more often during promotional sales, which influencers tend to broadcast ahead of the holiday season.
Searches on the CouponBirds Amazon page doubled every day during last year's seasonal spike, so this year the company brought more hands on deck to aggregate and verify deals for their couponers. Consumers interested in finding deals for these fast-selling items should start shopping early and buy as soon as possible to prevent delays during the shortened holiday shopping season this year.
Contact:
Simone Wu
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 8618516709939
SOURCE: CouponBirds