Report: Holiday-Related Commerce Expected to Slow or Even Drop

Online holiday-related commerce is expected to grow slowly or even dip this year, as several factors add up to a shopping season that’s quite different from last year’s.

Adobe Analytics predicted that online spending during the season will grow only 2.5% — the lowest growth since the company began tracking this spending in 2015, CNBC reported Monday (Oct. 10).

What’s more, when Adobe Analytics provided a range of possible outcomes, it ranged from a drop of 2% to a rise of 5%, according to the report.

While consumers raced to buy goods during last year’s holiday season as they were worried about shortages due to supply chain challenges, they’re likely to dial back their spending this year due to inflation, retailers bringing in the wrong sorts of products to meet post-pandemic demand and merchants offering discounts early in order to reduce their excess inventories, the report stated.

With consumers choosing to either forego some spending or make purchases months before the traditional Black Friday and Cyber Monday events — because they were offered discounts by retailers — buys that would have been made during the holiday shopping season that begins after Thanksgiving have already been completed, per the report.

The report noted that Target started its Deal Days last week, while Walmart’s Rollbacks and More started Monday and Amazon’s second Prime Day of the year is to be held Tuesday (Oct. 11).

As PYMNTS reported Oct. 4, this trend of major retailers offering holiday shopping deals weeks ahead of Black Friday — or even Halloween — has been driven by the perfect storm of bloated inventories and economic conditions.

Read more: Walmart Joins Other Retailers in Early Holiday Sales

Target, for example, is looking to whittle down its inventory, which is an issue that was first brought up in May and that the retailer has been continuously addressing since that time.

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