Recent trends arising from the global pandemic has resulted in drastic lifestyle changes affecting both businesses and individuals and their interactions levels with each other.

For many countries, another phase of lockdown is in full swing while others are gradually getting used to safety precautions in their social interactions.

E-commerce has experienced a similar hike in acceptance by both individuals and businesses making it even more important for organizations to establish their online presence and efficient e-business activities.

The holidays have been met with mixed reactions from customers where a few opted for physical store shopping and others stuck to the virtual marketplace of their trusted brands.

We take the following insights derived from various shopping experience surveys in recent sales activities and trend analysis of the holiday sales.

• Retail Website Visit: There has been a 30% increase in traffic to retail websites attributed to the strategic use of keywords and SEO-enabled website content to attract customers.

• Shoppers Spend Less Time Reviewing a Product or Service: There has been a 4.37% decrease in pages viewed and an 8.33% decrease in time spent on a page.

This makes it important for brands to work more at making better and faster impressions to their customers.

• Shopping Location Preferences: Deloitte’s predictions showed that 65% of shoppers will choose to buy products online instead of in-store to avoid crowds in 2020, while 64% choose to purchase online for the comfort of shopping from home. 66% of shoppers will also increase their online purchases this year.

• Mobile App Usage: The year 2020 has seen over a 55% increase in the use of smartphones for online shopping with 42% of all online shopping done from smartphones.

• Customer Data: Businesses with clean customer data are 2X more effective with cross-channel synchronized communication that is tailored for consumer needs.

With holiday shopping still in full swing across various sectors, there is a call for strategic positioning by organizations (both physical store locations and virtual visibility) and more efficient business operations.