Surge in E-Commerce Traffic in New Year As Well

Riding back on the wave of record-breaking online sales increase seen over Black Friday (December 15) and the eventual 2017 holiday shopping season, the streak has spilled over to the New Year as well, if the new data from Verizon's Holiday Retail Index is anything to go by.Verizon, which tracked the top 25 e-commerce retailers on a daily basis in the US has said that the New Year's Eve, as well as New Year's Day, had seen a phenomenal spike in online traffic in contrast with the previous year. Notably, the traffic volume of e-commerce daily traffic showed an upward tick of 15% on New Year's Eve 2017 in comparison with 2016 and traffic surged by 32% on New Year's Day as against the year-ago period, says a TechCrunch report. Incidentally, Verizon also owns Oath, the parent company of TechCrunch.Favorable FactorsAccording to the industry grapevines, the robust rise is attributed to a slew of factors such as incentives from retailers, promotions, and even the cold weather, which created a situation for more people to shop online.Michele Dupre, Group Vice President of Retail, Hospitality, and Distribution for Verizon Enterprise Solutions was quoted as saying by the report, “Retailers have been successfully wrapping up the season as consumers rang in 2018 by taking advantage of the end of year promotions and other appealing offers. What is more, the big chill in much of the country likely helped to heat up the digital marketplace as well.”

Last Minute ShoppingHigher New Year’s traffic followed another notable bump over last year, as well – the week before Christmas. While you might expect e-commerce traffic to slow this week, due to shipping times that would mean some gifts may not arrive in time for Christmas, this year, traffic increased. On December 15, traffic spiked 16% and the following day they further increased by 17% as against last year, quoting the study, the report concurred. This was a fair indication there was a lot of last-minute shopping taking place online this year, thanks to external factors such as the extended shipping deadlines and other delivery incentives, noted the report.Grabbing Consumer InterestConsider this:  The “Free Shipping Day” promotion on December 15, 2017, had in fact elicited much interest among the consumers.  The tenth annual sales holiday was started back in 2008 and grew to include over 1,200 participating retailers who waive their shipping fees to encourage increased online sales. This has also eventually helped boost Friday’s sales this year, the report added.Search MaturesMeanwhile in a consumer behavior roundup by emarketer.com, quoting the e-commerce firm Forrester, the report said that the search advertising had seen some of its shine fades as it faced challenges from social media and video. Forrester had predicted that the search advertisements still hold strong future due to positive factors like brand safety concerns (which had dinged display advertisements) and the growth of e-commerce advertisements on platforms including Amazon. What is more, the emergence of voice search is likely to help keep search advertisements a salient part of the marketing mix, says the report.New Year, New CoatTurns out shoppers don't take the day off on New Years. Verizon's Holiday Retail Index found that traffic to 25 top e-commerce sites jumped by 15% year over year on New Year's Eve. New Year's Day saw a spike of 32% in traffic volume when compared with the previous year. Retailers enticed these shoppers with promotions, but people also might not have wanted to brave the cold to make offline purchases.Teen Shopping TitansA new survey of teenagers from 13 to 19 by Collective Bias had revealed that one in ten spent between $100 and $150 weekly. Furthermore, in certain categories, this cohort spent more of their money in-store than online. For instance, 38% of respondents purchased non-food consumables at a brick-and-mortar store alone, as against 10% who did so online and 25% who made both online and offline purchases. But in some categories, such as music, a greater percentage of purchases happened in the digital realm than the physical one, the report said.Facebook's 2018 WinCiting Facebook, the report said that its live streaming feature, Facebook Live, saw people sharing 47% more live videos during New Year's than a year prior. Moreover, the social media major claimed more than ten million people worldwide went on Facebook Live to ring in the New Year.Ship7 is your one-stop solution for all your shopping and shipping needs.