It is that time of year again, time to start nailing down your holiday roadmaps. Here at BMDi, we typically send a colorful report full of trends and stats. This year, however, we are switching it up and featuring our content in a little video series. In this series you will learn the biggest shopping trends, understand where trends have been so you can tell where you’re going, and receive expert tips on how to optimize your strategy across your marketing channels. So, you can skip ahead to the video, browse the post below, or do both. Either way, enjoy.
Some of the biggest shopping trends for 2019:
The Cyber Five. Yes, that is a thing and it spans from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. Brands need to be optimizing for these days because the Cyber Five it brought in 24.2 billion dollars in 2018. Nearly a billion more than initially forecasted which translates to 86% percent year-over-year growth.
Next, Amazon. You really can’t talk about shopping online without mentioning the elephant in the room. One of the major trends we saw was that Amazon Prime day, in 2019, surpassed Black Friday 2018 in revenue. Actually, Prime Day is more than one day. This year it was July 15th – July 17th. So, Prime day(s) did 15.4% more sales than Black Friday did last year.
But, just because Amazon takes up a lot of space in the room doesn’t mean small business is suffering. In 2018 we saw small business Saturday grow bringing in 3.4 billion dollars with a 25% year-over-year growth. This trend will continue as people are really gravitating towards supporting their community and shopping local. So, while Amazon is growing the small businesses are trending up as well.
It isn’t a Holiday Guide without talking about mobile. Mobile continues to grow its contribution not only to traffic but to revenue as well. In 2018, 57% of holiday traffic and 37% of revenue came from mobile. And speaking of mobile, more local searches are resulting in in-store visits. Last year there’s a 46% increase in requests for directions just a few days before Christmas. We see you, last-minute shoppers, we get it.
Google’s SERP features continue to evolve adding different options. So, keep an eye on Google. Or rather, have your SEO team keep an eye on Google. They change their algorithm around 500 – 600 times a year. Do you have time to stay on top of that?
Place more value on media, search engines are. Things like, video and video. Kidding, kind of. With the steady rise in popularity of video, Google will increase serving video content to users.
Since you are here, here is one more expert tip (it didn’t make the cut for the video)…pay attention to Generation Alpha. Yep. Generation Alpha is largely born to Millennials and they are expected to be the wealthiest, most highly-educated and technologically-tethered group, ever.
“If Generation Alpha possesses similar behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs to that of their parents, then to win a certain segment of millennial consumers (millennial parents), we must target Generation Alpha.” – Google
Today’s youth…
- They enjoy gaming. An estimated 65% of American households have at least one person who games 3 hours per week. Twitch, owned by Amazon, is the No. 1 platform for streaming live video – during Q2 2019 it accounted for 70% of all live-streamed hours watched and 895 million views monthly. Let that sink in.
- They miss Vine. Maybe they do, but the culture has moved on to TikTok. TikTok enables users to make short video clips with effects. Think Vine for Gen Z. There are about 27 million monthly active users (almost 70% ages 13 – 24).
Curious for more tips and trends? Let our SVP of Client Services Lauren Klostermann and our director of SEO, Matt NeSmith explain further in the first video in our Holiday Video Series.
