SANTA MONICA, Calif., Oct. 14, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) Savings.com today released new research on the upcoming online holiday shopping season. The Savings.com Retail Index suggests this year’s e-commerce shopping will be the biggest and longest holiday shopping season ever.

The research, “Savings.com Retail Index: 2020 E-Commerce Holiday Shopping Season Earlier, Bigger Than Ever Before,” found that increased spending in advance of the holiday season started a month earlier that previous years.

“Traditionally, e-commerce experiences its seasonal low in mid-September between back-to-school spending and the beginning of holiday and fall spending. This year, which isn’t traditional in any fashion, the seasonal low happened in mid-August as if the holiday spending season will be a full month longer,” said Sara Korab, Retail Trends director at Savings.com. “In addition, with Prime Day and competing sales dominating this week, we expect e-commerce to receive an increasing share of wallet for the rest of the year.”

The Savings.com Retail Index also found that average order value for a typical basket of goods purchased online reached an all-time high in September.

As part of the research, Savings.com asked 650 heads of households about their plans for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the online holiday shopping season as a whole, and found:

• About 52 percent of people shopped in a physical store on Black Friday in 2019; only 30 percent are planning to do so this year, though a similar percentage are undecided.
• A large percentage of people (75 percent) still plan to shop online on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, and 60 percent of people said at least half their holiday shopping would be done online, compared to 43 percent last year.
• Just under half of people said they would spend a similar amount on all holiday shopping this year as last year, but a similar percentage expect to reduce their spending (48 percent vs. 41 percent).

The role of deals is also expected to be even more important this year. “While everyone likes a good deal, this year eight in 10 shoppers are saying sales and coupons are extremely important or very important this holiday season as everyone is trying to stretch their dollar,” continued Korab.

About Savings.com

Since 2007, Savings.com has helped smart shoppers save money on millions of purchases from apparel to appliances, and from lighting to luxury goods. The Savings.com Retail Index tracks retail trends, including purchase intent and basket-size across hundreds of online retailers, delivering insights to save consumers money and time.