Page 18 - AeM_Nov_2018

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Adobe holiday shopping predictions

We just started to imagine what artificial intelligence (AI) and return purchases more often compared to the
can do to transform the experience for both marketers rest of the year (5% and 18% more respectively),
and consumers with its impressive versatility. Adobe just and to shop more for experiences like cruises and
released its online shopping predictions for the 2018 hotels on Cyber Monday. More consumers will stay
holiday season, Retail Unwrapped, making use of its home on Thanksgiving Day. Sixty percent report
artificial intelligence and machine learning framework, to they won’t shop in stores on Thanksgiving Day, up
identify retail insights from trillions of data points that from 40% in 2016.
flow through Adobe Analytics and Magento Commerce
Cloud, part of Adobe Experience Cloud. • Top revenue-driving marketing channels:
Retailers will be able to capitalize on loyal
Adobe predicts the following: customers that go directly to their website to make
a purchase, with revenue per visit (RPV) rising the
• The mobile revenue opportunity: Smartphones most at 36%. Search has the second highest RPV
continue to gain share as consumers’ preferred growth at 23%, followed by helper sites like
devices for online shopping, representing 48.3% of RetailMeNot (15%) and email at 8%.
visits and 27.2% of revenue. Mobile revenue is up
11.6% YoY. Yet, completed cart orders happen over • Social losing value for retailers: Social referral
20% less often on smartphones than desktop, as a traffic will generate 11% less RPV compared to Q4
result of abandonment from sub-optimal checkout 2016. It is the only marketing channel to see a
experiences. Closing this gap equates to $9 billion in decline in RPV, despite the increase in referral
mobile sales. Tablets are on the decline, making up traffic coming from social. Adobe attributes this to
8.8% of visits (down 30% in four years) and just consumers’ weakening trust in social networks.
9.6% of sales. Consumers using mobile apps will Shoppers are also expected to consult social media
spend more time browsing and complete sales two sites 25% less for gift ideas this year.
times more often than on the web.
“As online shopping surges with another record-
• Emerging shopping trends: Voice-assisted breaking holiday season, the retailers with compelling
shopping is on the rise, with 21% of consumers websites coupled with physical store locations will
reporting they are planning to reorder frequently- have the advantage,” said John Copeland, head of
purchased items and 17% placing one-time orders Marketing and Customer Insights at Adobe.
for in-store pickup using their voice activated
devices. Adobe expects holiday shoppers to ship

18 November 2018 - Email Marketing & E-Commerce