The increase in holiday online sales is caused by rising prices!

Data from reports from multiple institutions show that the growth in online sales during the US holiday season was caused by rising prices.

According to Adobe 's holiday spending report released recently , U.S. consumers spent a total of $204.5 billion online during the 2021 holiday season , an increase of 8.6% year-on-year. At the same time, Americans spent a record $855 billion online throughout 2021, a year-on -year increase of 9 % .

However, compared with the same period last year , online prices in the U.S. rose 3.5% and 3.1 % in November and December , respectively . In December, clothing was the online product with the highest price increase , up 16.6% year-on-year .

Adobe 's holiday shopping season data shows that between November 1 and December 31, 2021, U.S. consumers spent more than $3 billion online on 38 days ( 25 days in 2020) . This is because the peak season started earlier this year, and consumers started shopping on dates other than traditional shopping festivals such as Cyber ​​Monday and Black Friday .

Online sales before Thanksgiving increased by 19.2% year- on-year, while online sales during Cyber ​​Week (the five days between Thanksgiving and Cyber ​​Monday) fell by 1.4% year-on-year. Online sales in the following weeks (November 30 to December 31) increased by 5.6% year-on-year.

Adobe 's report also found that out-of-stock situations were more severe in the United States during the holiday season, while overall offers and discounts were lower.

During the holiday season, consumers saw more than 6 billion out-of-stock listings online . That's up 253% from the pre-pandemic 2019 holiday season and up 10% from the same period in 2020. Discounts were weaker during the holiday season in the major categories Adobe surveyed. For example , price cuts on electronics averaged 8%, compared to 21% in 2020.

Coincidentally, Salesforce's holiday report also gave similar results.

Salesforce reported that during the holiday season, online sales in the U.S. and globally grew 9% and 5%, respectively, but at the same time, the average number of available SKUs in the U.S. and globally fell 2%, and the number of global online orders fell 4%. The average price of global online goods in 2021 was two percentage points lower during the holiday season than in 2020.

The three best performing product categories for online goods in November and December were luxury handbags ( +45% ) , home furnishings ( +34% ) and general footwear ( +32% ).

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