SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce
[NYSE: CRM], the global leader in CRM, today released its new consumer insights and
predictions for the 2017 holiday shopping season. Salesforce
anticipates that Black Friday will be the busiest digital shopping
day in U.S. history, exceeding Cyber Monday as the U.S. digital
shopping day with the most sales for the second year in a row.
Salesforce combined insights on the activity of 500 million
global shoppers across 53 countries and billions of transactions
powered by Commerce Cloud; millions of public social media
conversations analyzed through Marketing Cloud; and data from
Salesforce's annual Connected Shoppers Report to give retailers the
intelligence they need to drive their businesses forward.
Top Five Salesforce 2017 Holiday Season Predictions and
Insights:
- Holiday shopping stretches late into evenings and into the
season:
-
- The most popular online shopping time for website visits and
orders is from 8pm to 10pm.
- Consumers will only have 50 percent of their holiday shopping
completed by Sunday, Dec. 3rd and 80
percent completed by Friday, Dec.
15th.
- Cyber Week (Thanksgiving to Cyber
Monday) will see both the deepest discounts (average of 28 percent
off list price) and highest rate of free shipping (86 percent of all orders will have
it). Beyond Cyber Week, Monday, Dec.
11th will have the deepest discounts and highest
availability of free shipping.
- Mobile continues to eclipse desktop traffic:
-
- Mobile traffic to retail sites will grow to 60 percent of total
across the globe this shopping season (compared to 34 percent for
desktop and five percent for tablets), while orders placed on
phones will approach 40 percent on big shopping days such as Black
Friday.
- Meanwhile, 7 to 10 percent of all iPhone orders will go through
Apple Pay.
- While 28 percent of consumers say they would buy products from
an online retailer via SMS/text, only 16 percent have received a
SMS/text or push notification with an offer or communication from a
brand while in or near the brand's physical store
location.1
- Consumers still use many digital channels to research
products:
-
- The most used channels for research before buying online
include website (74 percent), email (43 percent), social media (38
percent) and a retailer's mobile apps (36
percent).2
- Just as interesting is the embrace of voice-enabled digital
assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri and Google Assistant,
used by 40 percent of millennials (ages 18-36) to research
merchandise before buying online.3
- More than half of consumers (58 percent) think that store
associates need the ability to look up product details on-demand on
a mobile device in order to help deliver an excellent customer
experience.4
- Millennials expect more personalized experiences as AI
matures:
-
- Over a third of millennials (35 percent) say the ability to
search merchandise in a physical store or online catalog using an
image and receiving product recommendations based on the attributes
of that image would be appealing.5
- Millennials are also 2.5 times more likely (28 percent vs. 11
percent) than baby boomers (ages 53-71) to say personalized digital
offers from retailers based on their purchasing history would
appeal to them.6
- Retailers are struggling to meet shopper desires for a
seamless and smart retail experience:
-
- Despite a desire for more personalized experiences, 63 percent
of consumers feel like retailers don't truly know who they
are.7
- In addition, 61 percent believe that in order to help deliver
an excellent customer experience, store associates need visibility
into all available inventory at other stores or warehouses if an
item is out of stock.8
- Fifty-nine percent of millennials feel it would help if
physical stores knew about their online research before they arrive
at a store so they could receive better service, yet 61 percent
agree that retail experiences are disconnected from channel to
channel.9
Comments on the News
- "Just like watching television, holiday shopping has moved from
an appointment based activity to an on-demand activity," said
Rob Garf, VP industry insights,
Salesforce Commerce Cloud. "Salesforce expects to see continued
growth not only in mobile orders and website visits, but also in
newer technologies such as mobile payments and artificial
intelligence. It's not too late for retailers to make adjustments
today in order to meet consumer expectations and better compete
this holiday season."
- "The winners and losers are getting defined every minute as we
march into retail's most important season," said Shelley
Bransten, SVP Retail Industry Solutions, Salesforce. "The
stakes continue to rise for retailers to leverage artificial
intelligence and emerging voice platforms to deliver seamless,
connected and personalized brand experiences."
Additional Resources:
- Visit the 2017 Salesforce Holiday Insights Data Center here:
https://www.sf-holiday-tracker.herokuapp.com
- Read more on the Salesforce blog here:
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2017/09/what-shoppers-can-expect-this-holiday.html
- Like Salesforce on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/salesforce.
- Follow @salesforce on Twitter.
2017 Salesforce Holiday Insights and Predictions
Methodology
Salesforce combined data-based insights on the
activity of 500 million global shoppers across 53 countries and
billions of transactions powered by Commerce Cloud, and millions of
public social media conversations through Marketing Cloud Social
Studio. This is in addition to data from Salesforce's 2017
Connected Shoppers Report, which is based on responses from 2,011
adults 18+ in the US, among whom 529 are Millennials (ages 18-36),
530 are Gen Xers (ages 37-52), and 737 are baby boomers (ages
53-71). This online survey is not based on a probability sample and
therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be
calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting
variables, please contact jciarallo@salesforce.com.
About Salesforce
Salesforce, the global CRM leader,
empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new
way. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit:
www.salesforce.com.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other
press releases or public statements are not currently available and
may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase
Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based
upon features that are currently available. Salesforce has
headquarters in San Francisco,
with offices in Europe and
Asia, and trades on the New York
Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information
please visit http://www.salesforce.com, or call
1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.
1 2017 Connected Shoppers Report
2 2017 Connected Shoppers Report
3 2017 Connected Shoppers Report
4 2017 Connected Shoppers Report
5 2017 Connected Shoppers Report
6 2017 Connected Shoppers Report
7 2017 Connected Shoppers Report
8 2017 Connected Shoppers Report
92017 Connected Shoppers Report
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