Online holiday sales grew year over year in the U.S. and globally from Nov. 1, 2024, through Dec. 31, according to data from some of the largest ecommerce software providers.
Consumers embraced discounts and generative AI during the 2024 holiday shopping season, according to Adobe Analytics. Discounts drove consumers to “trade up” to higher-ticket items, Adobe said, as the share of units-sold for the most expensive goods rose in sporting goods, electronics and appliances. Meanwhile, generative AI-powered chatbots serving as shopping assistants increased traffic to retail sites by 1,300%, according to Adobe.
All that contributed to U.S. consumers spending more than $4 billion online in a single day 15 days this holiday season. Last year, that happened on 11 days during the holiday season.
A third of those days in the 2024 holiday season were during the Cyber 5, or the period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. During those five days, U.S. consumers spent a minimum of $5.3 billion per day, according to Adobe data that Digital Commerce 360 previously reported.
Adobe Analytics says it bases its data on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories. 200 online retailers in the Top 1000 use Adobe Analytics for their web analytics. 97 use it for site design and development. Top 1000 online retailers also use it for content delivery and management, as an ecommerce platform, a marketing platform, for personalization and more.
US online holiday sales growth in 2024
Overall U.S. online holiday sales grew 8.7% year over year in 2024, amounting to $241.4 billion, according to Adobe Analytics data.
U.S. online holiday sales in 2024 surpassed Adobe’s projections of $240.8 billion. That would have been 8.4% growth over the 2023 online holiday sales, which totaled $221.8 billion (up 4.9% from the year before), according to the software provider’s data.
It was also “the most mobile of all time,” Adobe said, with smartphones driving 54.5% of those purchases. Last year, mobile commerce accounted for 51.1% of holiday-season sales. Mobile shopping was at its highest on Christmas, Adobe said, driving 65% of online sales (up from 63% in 2023).
Consumers spent $18.2 billion using BNPL, which is 9.6% (or $1.6 billion) more than the year before. Moreover, 79.1% of buy now, pay later (BNPL) transactions came from smartphones. Cyber Monday 2024 was the largest day on record for BNPL, driving $991.2 million, which is 5.5% more than during the same day in 2023.
“The 2024 holiday season showed that e-commerce is being reshaped by a consumer who now prefers to transact on smaller screens and lean on generative AI-powered services to shop more efficiently,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, in a statement. “It presents opportunities for retailers to deliver new services and experiences that capture the attention of consumers, many of whom are now shopping online in different ways.”
Additionally, more than half (54%) of 2024 online holiday sales came from three categories, according to Adobe:
- Electronics ($55.3 billion, which is 8.8% year-over-year growth)
- Apparel ($45.6 billion, up 9.9% from 2023)
- Furniture and home goods ($29.2 billion, up 6.8%)
The three categories combined for $130.1 billion in 2024 online holiday sales. However, the highest year-over-year online sales growth came from the grocery and cosmetics categories. Grocery sales increased 12.9% year over year during the 2024 holiday season, accounting for $21.5 billion. The cosmetics category grew 12.2% year over year to reach $7.7 billion.
Toys (7.8% year-over-year growth to $8.2 billion) and sporting goods (7.4% growth to $7.8 billion) also increased online holiday sales.
Although U.S. consumers used curbside pickup less overall this holiday season (17.5% in 2024 for retailers that offer the service, versus 18.4% in 2023), it still played a significant role in December shopping, Adobe data showed. Curbside pickup usage peaked on Dec. 23, driving 37.8% of online sales in the limited time before Christmas.
Global online holiday sales growth in 2024
Globally, online holiday sales in 2024 reached $1.2 trillion, according to data from software provider Salesforce. That’s 3% growth year over year.
Of that, $842 billion came from mobile devices, Salesforce said. Diving a little deeper, social commerce through platforms like TikTok Shop and Instagram generated 20% of global online holiday sales.
Social media as a traffic-referring channel also grew 8% year over year, according to Salesforce. It drove 14% of all traffic to ecommerce sites during the season.
Additionally, close to a quarter (about 23.5%, or $229 billion) was influenced by AI and agents in the form of product recommendations, targeted orders, and conversational customer service support, according to Salesforce. More specifically, 19% of online holiday sales in 2024 were influenced by consumers engaging with AI and agents. That’s up 6% year over year.
Salesforce says it draws on global shopping data from more than 1.5 billion shoppers from its Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud platforms. In North America, 76 of the Top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform. In 2023, those 76 online retailers combined for more than $136.077 billion in web sales.
2024 holiday-season discounts
In the U.S., discounts peaked at about 30% off listed price during the 2024 holiday season, according to Adobe data. The best deals were in:
- Electronics, 30.1% off listed price (versus 31% in 2023)
- Toys, 28% off (the same as 2023)
- Apparel, 23.2% off (versus 24% in 2023)
- Computers, 22.8% (versus 24% in 2023)
- Furniture/home goods, 19% (versus 21% in 2023)
“This season, Adobe’s data showed that for every 1% decrease in price, consumer demand increased by 1.029% compared to the 2023 season,” it said. This drove an additional $2.25 billion in online spend. It also “shows the stronger response to discounts from price-sensitive shoppers,” Adobe said.
On average, the share of units sold for the most expensive merchandise increased 21% year over year, according to Adobe, which attributes that growth to discounts. Among the top categories, that growth was highest in:
- Sporting goods (54% growth)
- Electronics (48%)
- Appliances (35%)
- Personal care products (32%)
- Apparel (10%)
Globally, retailers offered 22% off listed prices in the 2024 holiday season, according to Salesforce. That’s up 2% year over year.
Impact of returns on 2024 online holiday sales
Salesforce data shows that more than $122 billion worth of purchases have already been returned, as of the first week of January 2025. That’s a 28% year-over-year increase.
“Try-on hauls” and bracketing contributed to that increase in returns, as consumers buy multiple sizes of clothes to see which they prefer to keep, sending the rest back.
“Retailers had a robust holiday season, but a 28% rise in the rate of returns compared to last year is a cause for some concern,” said Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights at Salesforce, in a statement. “Retailers who have embraced AI and agents are already seeing the benefits, but these tools will be even more critical in the new year as retailers aim to minimize revenue losses on returns and reengage with shoppers.”
In 2024 as a whole, consumers returned $685 billion worth of merchandise. That’s a decrease from $743 billion the year before. However, the total dollar amount retailers lost to “fraudulent and abusive returns and claims” increased year over year in 2024. It grew to $103 billion in 2024 from $101 billion in 2023.
Here’s last year’s article about holiday online sales.
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