The holidays were in fact pretty happy for marketers and retailers, according to all the data that’s been coming in.
For instance, a preliminary Mastercard SpendingPulse tally shows that retailers (including restaurants) saw a 3.8% year-over-year (YoY) increase in sales across in-store and online between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 — slightly higher than the National Retail Federation’s projected maximum growth of 3.5%.
To get a fuller picture of the 2024 holiday shopping cycle — and what the season’s trends could mean for the year ahead — here are eight key takeaways for marketers:
Online shopping just keeps growing and growing
Coming as no surprise, online shopping had a banner 2024 holiday season. Just-released Adobe Analytics data shows an 8.7% YOY jump in online spending in the U.S., for a total of $241.4 billion spent between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31. Mastercard puts U.S. online holiday spending growth at 6.7% (across a Nov. 1–Dec. 24 window), while Salesforce data shows 4% YOY online spending growth in the U.S. (Nov. 1-Dec. 31), for a total of $282 billion spent, per TechCrunch.
Consumer enthusiasm for brick-and-mortar shopping continues to heat up
Mastercard tracked a 2.9% YoY increase in in-store holiday retail spend, while data from Visa shows total in-store holiday retail spend growing 4.1% — up from 1.6% last year.
Additionally, Visa found that the majority of holiday retail spend in the U.S. occurred in brick-and-mortar stores, with 77% of total payment volume happening in-store vs. 23% online.
Placer.ai data, meanwhile, shows a 1.5% year-over-year increase in indoor U.S. mall visits across all of 2024, and a 1.7% increase for open-air U.S. mall visits.
Cash-strapped consumers love a holiday sale — even if it means taking on debt
During the 2024 holiday season, Adobe found that for every 1% drop in the typical price for a given item, demand for that item increased by nearly 1% compared to the prior holiday season. Adobe says price drops contributed to an additional $2.25 billion in online spending, demonstrating the extent to which discounts motivated holiday shoppers, per CNBC.
The power of discounting is understandable considering that 36% of Americans took on debt to cover holiday expenses this season, according to LendingTree data. Those who did so took on an average of $1,181 of debt — an increase from 2023’s average of $1,028 — with 65% putting purchases on a credit card and 24% on a store card. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) was also popular, as 21% of consumers reported using the credit option, per LendingTree.
Overall, Adobe data shows that the use of BNPL increased 9.6% YoY, driving $18.2 billion in online spending during the 2024 holiday cycle, per CNBC.
Social and mobile are driving more and more consumer spending
Smartphones continue to play a significant role in Americans’ shopping behavior, with $195 billion in U.S. holiday sales initiated on mobile devices this season according to Salesforce data, per Chain Store Age. Furthermore, Adobe reports that more than half (55%) of the season’s e-commerce purchases happened on smartphones (vs. computers and other devices combined).
Salesforce data shows that retailers employing social commerce strategies saw 20% of their global holiday sales come through platforms such as TikTok Shop and Instagram. Overall, social media’s role as a traffic-referring channel increased 8% YoY, driving 14% of all traffic to e-commerce sites during the holiday season, per Salesforce. As Social Media Today reports, TikTok Shop alone saw a 165% YoY increase in shoppers from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, with a threefold YoY increase in Black Friday sales alone that topped $100 million.
AI has a rapidly rising role in swaying purchases
According to Adobe, holiday–season traffic to retail sites from external generative AI-powered chatbots (not including those offered by retailers) increased 1,300% YoY. Overall, Salesforce says $229 billion in global online sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31 were influenced by AI, while AI-powered chatbots boosted online sales in the U.S. by nearly 4%, Reuters reports.
Spending on experiences — and gifting experiences — is growing
Deloitte’s 2024 Holiday Retail Survey found that consumers had planned to spend an average of $735 on experiences during the season, for 16% YoY growth, with four in 10 shoppers saying they planned to gift experiences (e.g., tickets or gift cards for events), Chain Store Age reports.
Notably, the 2024 holiday cycle saw a bump in restaurant spending — rising 6.3% this holiday season compared to last — while categories such as apparel, jewelry and electronics all saw increases of 4% or less, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse.
A lot of consumers are waiting until the last minute to wrap up their shopping
That U.S. shoppers spent a record $13.3 billion on Cyber Monday (per Adobe, via eMarketer) is impressive — but also notable is the fact that the last five days of the holiday shopping season, including “Super Saturday” (the last Saturday before Christmas), accounted for 10% of all holiday season spending, per Mastercard. It’s not surprising, though, given that 157.2 million consumers in an NRF survey said they planned to shop on Super Saturday, up from 141.9 million last year.
Returns of holiday purchases are rising
All this data certainly paints a rosy picture of the holiday shopping season for retailers, but there’s one detail that’s likely to bring them back down to earth: returns. Salesforce expects global returns to amount to $133 billion, representing over 11% of the $1.2 trillion spent online between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, per Investopedia. The software company estimates that, as of Jan. 6, $122 billion in global holiday purchases had already been returned, 28% higher than last holiday season.
