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Bad weather will spur an additional $13.5 billion in U.S. online spending this year, Adobe Inc. said in a report Wednesday. That’s up about 3% from last year. The study, the first of its kind by the software provider and its ecommerce research unit, is based on an assessment of past shopping patterns combined with data on rain, snow and wind compiled by The Weather Co., a unit of IBM Corp.

“A modestly rainy day can push more people to shop on their phones or computers,” Adobe said.

Using the findings to boost online sales further

The findings could help brands and retailers predict shopper behavior more accurately, Adobe says. The information could be a new tool as spending migrates online. The exact effects will depend on the exact weather conditions, and the impact is sprinkled throughout the year. But Adobe estimates the cumulative total of sales sparked by bad weather outweighs Cyber Monday, the largest online shopping day of the year, which generated $11.3 billion last year.

“We see this as having massive implications for brands across the country,” said Vivek Pandya, an analyst at Adobe. He added that reacting to weather can help companies fine tune their promotions and supply chains. “We always assume weather has some impact on spending levels and behavior. This has been really able to show the magnitude.”

Some of the gains occur when bad weather prompts shoppers to stay home, which has traditionally eroded brick-and-mortar stores’ revenue. But now, homebound consumers purchase goods with money they would have otherwise spent on services such as eating out, boosting ecommerce totals.

“It’s uncommon to see this kind of effect shine through the data so clearly,” said Costa Lasiy, another Adobe analyst.

Adobe concluded that:

• Rain provides the biggest online sales boost, accounting for $8.7 billion. The effect peaks when there’s rainfall of 0.8 to 1 inch (2.5 centimeters), which would typically mean three hours of heavy rain. And the shopping gains are particularly strong on weekends and in the fall.
• Wind is expected to lift online sales by $4.4 billion, but it only helps up to a point. Speeds of more than 25 miles (40 kilometers) an hour cause ecommerce to wane as the wind grabs people’s attention. There are also regional differences. Strong winds cause ecommerce to drop in Atlanta, while shoppers in Chicago keep spending through the same conditions.
• Snow accounts for a small boost, with geographic variations. In cities with low snow totals, such as Austin, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina, even a little drags down sales as consumers focus on the weather. In cities such as New York and Seattle, snow prompts people to stay home and shop more online.

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Ecommerce spending topped $3 billion a day on 38 occasions during the 2022 holiday season. Only 25 days topped $3 billion in digital sales during the 2021 season.

Adobe had reported earlier that online shopping during Cyber 5 — the period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday — grew 4% year over year to $35.27 billion.

Discounts attracted online shoppers

Across major ecommerce categories, discounts hit record highs this holiday season. Discounts in toys peaked at 34% off listed price (versus 19% in 2021), as well as electronics at 25% (vs. 8%), according to a statement from Adobe Inc. Discounts were also strong across other categories including:

• Computers at 20% (vs. 10%)
• Apparel at 19% (vs. 13%)
• Televisions at 17% (vs. 11%)
• Appliances at 16% (vs. 4%)
• Sporting goods at 10% (vs. 6%)
• Furniture at 8% (vs. 2%)

“At a time when consumers were dealing with elevated prices in areas such as food, gas, and rent, holiday discounts were strong enough to sustain discretionary spending through the entire season,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, in a written statement. “The big deals drew in consumers and drove volume, helping retailers who were challenged with oversupply issues, particularly in categories such as apparel, electronics, and toys.”

Inflation’s impact on ecommerce

Strong consumer spending online has been driven by net-new demand, and not simply higher prices. The Adobe Digital Price Index (DPI), which tracks ecommerce prices across 18 categories, shows prices online have been falling year over year since September 2022. Adobe figures are not adjusted for inflation, but if online inflation were factored in, there would still be growth in underlying consumer demand.

Toys drove online holiday sales

Online sales of toys jumped 206% compared to pre-season levels in October 2022. Top-selling toys this holiday season included Legos, Hot Wheels, Paw Patrol, LOL Surprise, Squishmallows, Bluey and Cocomelon.

Other categories with substantial jumps in online sales during the holiday period included video games (up 115%) and apparel/accessories (up 94%).

Subcategories that saw strong demand in online holiday shopping:

• Watches (up 108%)
• Baby toys (up 101%)
• Gift cards (up 98%)
• Cosmetics (up 90%)
• Outdoor grills (up 86%)
• Speakers (up 76%)
• Smart home products (up 67%)

Additional insights: Online holiday shopping

• Mobile shopping: This holiday season, 47% of online sales came through smartphones (up from 43% in 2021). Christmas Day (Dec. 25) set a new mobile record, driving the majority of online sales at 61% (up from 58%).

• Buy now, pay later (BNPL): In the holiday season overall, BNPL orders rose 4% when compared with 2021. However, revenue decreased 2%, indicating shoppers are increasingly using BNPL for smaller shopping carts.

• Curbside pickup: The fulfillment method was used in 21% of online orders this holiday season (for retailers that offer the service), down slightly from 23% in the year prior. From Dec. 22 to Dec. 23 (right before Christmas Eve), curbside pickup peaked at 42% of online orders, with anxious shoppers using the service to get gifts in time.

• Marketing channels: Paid search remained the biggest driver of sales for retailers this holiday season (29% of online sales attributable to that channel). Direct web visits (19%), organic search (17%), affiliates/partners (16%), and email (15%) were also major contributors. Revenue directly attributable to social media remained at less than 3% of total sales this season, but that share has grown 24% YoY.

Methodology

Adobe’s analysis covers more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail websites, 100 million SKUs, and 18 product categories. Adobe Analytics is part of Adobe Experience Cloud, which is used by more than 85% of the top 100 internet retailers in the U.S. listed in the Digital Commerce 360 Top 500 Report.

2022 Top 500 Report

Analysis of North America’s leading 500 online retailers. Includes over 100 charts, rankings by 2021 web sales, benchmarking data, growth analyses by category and merchant type, and an executive overview on the current state of ecommerce. 

View Details

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It was that kind of year. Neither earth-shattering nor dismal. Neither ground-breaking nor a return to the norm.

We got the first indications of this in January. The COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t over, but the retail industry was pretty eager to act as if it was. The National Retail Federation planned a return to the real world for its Big Show. But just days before attendees were due to arrive, coronavirus cases spiked in New York and the keynote speaker — Honest Co. founder, actor and celebrity Jessica Alba canceled. Still, the show must go on, as actors say. The Big Show did come to New York. But not many attendees did.

There was another indication back in January that 2022 would be less than remarkable. The big business story in retail that month was that Kim Kardashian’s underwear label Skims had doubled its valuation to $3.2 billion in nine months. That suggested innovation in 2022 would involve attaching a celebrity’s name to a version of an actual innovation from two decades earlier.

By February, there was a throw-the-spaghetti-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks air about the entire retail world. Target Corp. offered Starbucks beverages as part of its curbside pickup. Peloton, Home Depot, Wish.com and Shipt all decided to try new CEOs, and Amazon laborers — who hadn’t had much luck working with the giants of organized labor — decided to organize themselves.

Then, on Feb. 24, Russia invaded Ukraine.

In the following weeks, the retail world behaved admirably. Toy companies became symbols of the resistance, while major companies around the globe cut ties to the Russian economy. In the meantime, there were other ominous signs for ecommerce. A global supply chain crisis was poised to worsen. And inflation for the year ending March 2022 hit 8.5% — the largest 12-month increase since 1981.

By April, the bad news had everyone in ecommerce worried that things were falling apart. Everyone seemed to be losing money and/or going deeper into debt. Buy-now-pay-later options grew popular with shoppers and retailers. Amazon.com Inc., No. 1 in Digital Commerce 360’s Top 1000, posted a $3.8 billion loss. Bed Bath & Beyond said its net sales fell 22%. Young adults borrowed money and engaged in crypto speculation, and Etsy sellers went on strike.

April showers are supposed to give way to May flowers. But in 2022 … not so much. The bad news continued. Surplus inventory levels soared. Ecommerce growth continued to slow. Wayfair Inc., No. 7 in Digital Commerce 360’s Top 1000, announced a hiring freeze. EBay’s sales fell and Target’s earnings plummeted. In the meantime, the spaghetti-against-the wall craze continued as Amazon started subleasing warehouse space while opening a clothing store, just as Walmart announced plans for delivery by drone.

In June, things grew darker. Bed Bath & Beyond’s CEO stepped down as sales fell further. So too did the CEO of The RealReal, No. 40 in the ranking of Digital Commerce 360 Top 100 Online Marketplaces. Meanwhile, Apple and PayPal both made it easier for shoppers to go deeper in debt.

July was supposed to be a time of great excitement in ecommerce, as Amazon held its Prime Day sale. But shoppers were underwhelmed. As if in response to the disappointment, Amazon announced a drop in ecommerce sales (albeit for the quarter before Prime Day), Shopify slashed its workforce, and soaring inflation pushed consumers to amass BNPL debt to pay for groceries.

In August, things grew both darker and brighter. Best Buy, No. 6 in the 2022 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000, said U.S. online sales dropped 14.7%, while Macy’s said its Q2 online sales fell 5% and multiple retailers struggled to unload excess inventory. By contrast, Walmart said its online sales rose 12% in the second quarter, albeit largely because of inflation. Overall ecommerce numbers grew, but at a pace that was well below what the industry had grown accustomed to. U.S. ecommerce spending in Q2 marked its fourth straight quarter of single-digit growth following the 45%-50% jumps during the first year of the pandemic, according to a Digital Commerce 360 analysis of U.S. Department of Commerce figures.

The industry responded once more by throwing pasta against the wall. Peloton said it would sell on the Amazon marketplace, and Walmart added streaming video to its membership program.

In September, things turned macabre. Bed Bath & Beyond’s chief financial officer died by suicide. Shortly before that, the world learned that Chewy founder and activist investor Ryan Cohen — who had driven Bed Bath & Beyond shares higher during the meme stock craze — had sold his entire stake in the retailer. Shares fell 40% in the wake of Cohen’s action. Unsurprisingly, Bed Bath & Beyond soon announced it had another dismal quarter.

By now, the pattern was clear. Times are tough; pasta must be thrown. So Amazon announced it would have another Prime Day sale. Meanwhile, Kanye West severed ties with the Gap, suggesting that in 2022 true innovation might mean removing a celebrity’s name from someone else’s innovation.

In October, the ecommerce world watched as that second Prime Day — dubbed the Amazon Prime Early Access sale, in a sign that in 2022 true innovation might mean changing the name of an earlier innovation — fizzled.

Meanwhile, in a particularly disturbing development, online prices for food hit a new record high. Then, in a move that no one thinks would help those prices fall, The Kroger Co. said it had agreed to buy rival Albertsons Cos. Inc. for $24.6 billion.

As October ended, Digital Commerce 360 warned that “online retailers again will have a tough go of it this season, trying to convince shoppers who are contending with inflation and recession fears not to skimp on their gift lists.”

November, of course, is when the hopes and fears of all of ecommerce converge in the Cyber 5 period. Early in the month, there were some pieces of bad news that suggested Cyber 5 results might prove disappointing. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. decided not to disclose full sales results for its signature Singles’ Day shopping festival for the first time, after forecasts that the figure may suffer a decline unprecedented in the event’s 14-year history. Alibaba owns and operates Taobao and Tmall, which hold the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in the ranking for Digital Commerce 360 Online Marketplaces. And Singles’ Day is the world’s largest shopping festival.

Meanwhile, Amazon said it planned to cut about 10,000 jobs — the largest ever headcount reduction at the ecommerce giant as it braces for slower growth and a possible recession.

Yet December — like 2022 itself — saw the release of news that was both good and bad. Cyber 5 results, the effects of inflation, struggles over supply chain and inventory levels, all proved to be neither earth-shattering nor dismal. Neither ground-breaking nor a return to the norm.

Early in December, the industry learned that web sales grew 4% to reach $35.27 billion in the Cyber 5, or the five-day period of Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, according to Adobe Analytics. Amazon and Walmart were the big winners. That news came just days after the U.S. Commerce Department said the value of overall retail purchases dropped 0.6% in November — the largest decline in 11 months.

Also in December came the piece of news that most perfectly summed up the entirety of 2022 in retail. Celebrity Justin Bieber blasted H&M for what he called the “trash” of the all-new Justin Bieber-themed merchandise sold by H&M, suggesting that the biggest innovation of 2022 involved attaching a celebrity’s name to innovations they don’t like.

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92% of Poshmark marketplace members are open to receiving secondhand gifts — but only 33% of people would shop secondhand for their gift-giving needs today, according to the 2022 Poshmark Trend Report: Holiday Edition. Research company Morning Consult conducted a survey based on Poshmark’s 80 million members comparing Sept. 11-18, 2022, with the same period in 2021.

Steven Tristan Young, chief marketing officer, Poshmark

“There is a gap between what we think our friends and family are open to receiving versus what they actually want,” Young said. “A great way to overcome that is to talk about secondhand gifting with loved ones.”

Younger shoppers are more open to secondhand gifts, according to the report. 55% of Gen Z consumers said they are likely to buy secondhand gifts for their friends and loved ones this holiday season.

Consumer perception of gifting pre-owned merchandise is changing. Secondhand merchants are working to make it easier to shop for used products online. Poshmark launched a sale for the first time during the Cyber 5 period, and online consignment store ThredUp debuted a secondhand holiday collection for the first time.

Plus, apparel merchant Patagonia reported record web traffic when it promoted its secondhand collection on Cyber Monday. Browser extension Beni continues to add resale merchants to its client roster as demand for an easier way to search grows. And luxury goods reseller Rebag said shopper demand is booming for hard-to-find brands. But, while resale continues to grow as an online category, a lingering reluctance to gift used merchandise continues.

Resale’s lower price point appeals to a budget-conscious consumer

Currently, buying used is not a top choice for consumers. 9% of survey respondents said they shop secondhand for apparel, accessories or shoes online on sites like Poshmark, ThredUp, The RealReal and others, according to a Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights survey which compared 1,064 online apparel shoppers in Sept. 2022 and 1,049 respondents in May 2021. That’s up 1 percentage point compared with 2021 when 8% said they shopped for secondhand apparel online.

But the reluctance to buy secondhand is changing, says Liza Amlani, principal and founder of The Merchant Life, a retail consultancy. Consumers are spending but want to stretch their dollar and spend less overall, she says.

“Resale is becoming more of a giftable option due to price point accessibility,” Amlani says.

Consumers are also increasingly interested in sustainable products, especially younger consumers who are already shopping and selling on Poshmark or ThredUp, Amlani says.

43% of shoppers noted sustainability as a deciding factor in what they buy, according to luxury goods resale marketplace The RealReal’s 2022 Luxury Resale Report, which measured data from 28 million of its shoppers between January and June this year compared with the same period in 2021.

Resale is growing in popularity both in the U.S. and worldwide, according to the 2022 ThredUp resale report. ThredUp projects total U.S. secondhand sales, which include resale, traditional thrift and donations, will more than double by 2026, reaching $82 billion, according to the report. The report is based on a survey of 2,500 U.S. consumers in January 2022. Resale alone is expected to reach $51 billion by 2026.

In 2021, resale sales grew 58% year over year, the highest in five years, according to the report.

Secondhand Sunday and secondhand fashion lines

Poshmark launched the event Secondhand Sunday on Nov. 27, 2022, to encourage shoppers to buy secondhand products. This was the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. Poshmark created a separate landing page on its website. It included a video, resale statistics, Poshmark seller profiles, and links directing shoppers to resources. A Poshmark Instagram post noted holiday promotional dates, the holiday trend report, and an explanation of how the reselling process works.

Poshmark launched the event Secondhand Sunday on Nov. 27, 2022, to encourage shoppers to buy secondhand products.

Poshmark recorded a 29.7% increase in the number of listings sold for vintage items between Nov. 24-27, 2022, compared with Nov. 25-28, 2021. The number of toy listings increased 50.3% during the same timeframe year over year.

According to Morning Consult data, vintage items, books, home items, jewelry/watches, furniture, and luxury items are top categories consumers are open to receiving as secondhand gifts, Young said. Men are more open to receiving resale electronics, while secondhand shoes are popular among younger shoppers, he said.

Resale for the holidays

While Poshmark does not ask shoppers if something is a gift, Young said the merchant does pay attention to categories that are known for being popular gift items, such as handbags, jewelry and toys.

“When we see notable increases in these ‘gift-friendly’ categories, we attribute some of that to holiday gift shopping,” Young said.

In 2022, handbags and vintage item listings increased 12.2% during the Thanksgiving through Sunday holiday weekend. Used book listings also increased 12.8% year over year, Young said.

ThredUp promoted its holiday Zero Waste Daniel Full Circle collection, which is made entirely of secondhand 1990s-inspired clothing. The resale marketplace featured actress Fran Drescher to bring the “trash-to-treasure” collection, promoting gift-giving on a budget. Prices start at $10. Most items fall into a $20-$60 range and as high as $600 for items like coats. ThredUp did not disclose how the sale performed.

An easier way to search resale

Another way to promote online resale shopping is to make it easier for shoppers to find used products, says Beni CEO and cofounder Sarah Pinner. Demand is growing for startup Beni’s browser plugin, which shows shoppers resale products in real time based on the consumer’s web browser search, she says.

Sarah Pinner, cofounder and CEO, Beni

“I think [the concept of resale] is hitting a bit of a tipping point where there’s less stigma around shopping secondhand for the holidays,” Pinner says.

Currently, approximately 4,000 consumers use Beni to shop for secondhand goods online. The web browser extension is available for desktop Safari and Google Chrome. The plugin is also available for Safari on mobile devices.

If a consumer has the Beni plugin on her web browser and she is looking for a black dress on any apparel site, like Macys.com, Beni will display similar secondhand options at the top of the webpage from more than 30 resale sites. If a shopper clicks on one of the items, she is then redirected to that reseller. Beni earns an undisclosed commission on each sale.

“Our goal is to build [Beni] together with the resale marketplaces that have done a lot of the heavy lifting to get all this amazing inventory online,” Pinner says. “Our goal is to make buying resale as easy as buying new.”

By simplifying the resale product search process, Beni hopes to normalize shopping for secondhand merchandise, Pinner says.

Patagonia joins Beni

In December, Patagonia began its pilot test run with Beni. Beni sells used products from the retailer’s online Worn Wear store.

Asha Agrawal, head of corporate development, Patagonia

“We’re going to see if [selling through Beni] is a way to bring awareness to our reused goods,” says Asha Agrawal, head of corporate development at Patagonia.

The outdoor apparel and goods retailer is looking at different ways to market its secondhand products beyond using the Patagonia brand, such as via the Beni platform, Agrawal says.

But it’s also using the power of its well-established Patagonia brand. Patagonia typically refrains from promoting its brand during the holidays. But on Cyber Monday, Patagonia.com redirected shoppers to the retailer’s resale Worn Wear website. Patagonia offered shoppers a 20% discount on anything purchased through its resale online store.

The event was a success, Agrawal says. Cyber Monday 2022 was the Worn Wear website’s second most popular web traffic day since the Worn Wear online store launched in 2020. In 2020, Patagonia.com shoppers could click on a button located on Patagonia’s main website landing page that led to the Worn Wear store. 2022’s strategy automatically redirected web traffic to Patagonia.com to www.wornwear.patagonia.com.

This year, 70% of all Worn Wear Cyber Monday online sales were from first-time customers, Agrawal says.

Resale is an opportunity to buy hard-to-find products

Shoppers on the hunt for “unicorn” items — sold out, hard-to-find luxury handbags or accessories — can turn to Rebag, a luxury reseller of handbags and accessories. In this case, resale doesn’t always mean reduced price.

Charles Gorra, founder and CEO, Rebag

The reseller prepared for the holidays earlier this year and launched its 2022 gift suite in late October instead of November, said Charles Gorra, founder and CEO of Rebag.

“Given that each item in Rebag’s inventory is unique, and many styles are limited edition, sold out in the primary market or generally difficult to obtain, we typically see shoppers looking to procure gifts early on,” Gorra said, without revealing more.

Rebag’s holiday Gift Suite gives shoppers options

Rebag’s 2022 holiday Gift Suite gives shoppers a range of categories to choose from. This includes “investment pieces” like the Hermes Constance Bag Epsom 24, a used handbag in “great” condition for $15,170. The retail price for the new product was $11,400 in 2022.

Shoppers also have the option to buy and sell in one transaction through Rebag’s Trade program. Rebag sellers can bank the money from sold items to use toward other Rebag purchases.

Shoppers search Rebag for rare items like Telfar-brand handbags. These can cost $200-$320 when purchased new. Certain styles can cost more than $900 on resale sites for coveted styles like the Telfar Round Circle Bag. These bags have an average value retention of 195% because demand outweighs supply, Gorra said. These items appreciate about twice as much as their original retail price because they are in high demand.

“With limited drops, it can be next to impossible to score a Telfar bag on the primary market in the size and color you want,” Gorra said.

While not currently mainstream, resale growth will continue. As more brands launch into resale, consumers will have more opportunities to shop secondhand. Resale merchants hope that by appealing to consumers’ waning budgets and increased interest in sustainability, the stigma associated with secondhand shopping will dissipate and become commonplace.

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Vera Bradley typically hires seasonal employees in mid-November, with the last day of their two-week training on Black Friday, says Susan Campbell, director of customer experience. But in 2022, it brought in its 18 seasonal agents two weeks earlier, at the start of November, she says.

Even starting earlier, the retailer had challenges with finding qualified candidates who would want to stay until the end of the holiday season.

“You might find they are fantastic, but they might decide after two days of training that the job isn’t for them,” says Campbell about a situation the retailer faced. “It’s definitely a different world than it has been in previous years.”

In addition to industry-wide staffing shortages, the other challenge Vera Bradley has for retaining customer service agents over the holiday season is that it doesn’t have the budget to offer a “stay bonus,” Campbell says. This is extra compensation some merchants offer to seasonal employees who stay until the end of the holiday season. And so, the merchant has to get creative, she says.

Through its customer service software Nice LTD., it uses a gamification program in which agents can earn points for various tasks. For example, representatives earn points if they fill out their time cards promptly, for attendance or having the highest CSAT (customer satisfaction) rating of the day.

Employees can redeem points for $5-$50 gift cards to Target, Starbucks or Vera Bradley or other Vera Bradley products. This is a great motivator, Campbell says, as employees like to use these as stocking stuffers.

This program also keeps employees engaged with their job, she says. Overall, the merchant finds that agents with the highest CSAT score often correlates to the agents with the most points in the program, Campbell says.

Vera Bradley also motivates seasonal employees with the prospect of a full-time position. The merchant typically has 50 full-time customer service agents it employs as well as 20 “overflow agents,” which also represent its brand, to handle even more inquiries. It currently has a few open positions for full-time employment.

Customer service trends for the 2022 holiday season

During the 2022 holiday season, more consumers have texted in their customer service needs than average, Campbell says.

The volume of inquires Vera Bradley has received from SMS increased more than 100% year over year during the 2022 Cyber 5.

For all of 2022 through Dec. 12, 13% of Vera Bradley’s customer service contacts are from SMS/texting. This is up from 10% of all contacts from SMS in 2021. Campbell says the merchant could finish the year with 15% of contacts from text because it’s been trending so high during the holiday season.

As of Dec. 12, 24% of customer service inquires for 2022 were from email, 23% from live chat, 33% from phone calls, 5% from social media and the remaining percentage from other categories.

Campbell attributes the increase in SMS customer service requests to an increase in younger consumers shopping with the brand. Still, the brand skews older. 46.9% of traffic to its website in 2021 was from shoppers ages 45 and older. That compares with 37.0% on average for all merchants in the Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000, according to data from web measurement vendor SimilarWeb in the Top500Guide.com. Vera Bradley is No. 272 in Top 1000.

Campbell says the No. 1 reason shoppers call customer service is to place an order. When a limited edition product arrives, such as its Christmas ornaments with the year on it, shoppers want to ensure they get the product before it sells out, she says.

Vera Bradley’s customer service channel options and features

Vera Bradley initially launched text as a method to contact customer service in 2018, as it was looking for ways to improve its customer service experience. The brand knew that shoppers don’t want to wait on hold to talk to an agent.

Vera Bradley already had a 1-800 number for customer service and it enabled that number to receive texts. The merchant immediately started receiving texts for customer service help, without it marketing the feature as an option. That meant shoppers had already been trying to text the merchant, but these shoppers were not getting any response because the number was not set up to receive texts and Vera Bradley had no idea.

“You have to be where your customer wants to be,” Campbell says. “The customer is evolving whether you are paying attention or not.”

Other ways Vera Bradley works to keep its call hold time low is to put as much information on the website as possible so shoppers can look for answers themselves, Campbell says.

“A lot of self-service options have helped us tremendously,” Campbell says. “Shoppers will say, ‘I looked on the website, but I didn’t see it.’ They are definitely using the website first, and we are like the second option.’”

And shoppers ask detailed questions. For example, shoppers ask about dimensions of specific pockets to see if their size phone or water bottle will fit. They’ll also ask how many pieces of paper a binder will fit.

A customer service agent responds to an exact dimension request for a water bottle.

To help shoppers, every few days, Vera Bradley creates a ticket for the web team to add these specific questions to the question-and-answer section on product detail pages so other shoppers will know the answer.

Enhanced customer service tools at Vera Bradley

Vera Bradley also allows its VIP shoppers to jump the call queue when they call customer service. For shoppers who spend a high dollar value with the retailer, the Nice In Contact customer service platform can flag those inbound calls and put them to the top of the list.

It also works to reduce call wait times by offering shoppers who call in on a cellphone (as opposed to a landline) the option to switch to live chat. While the shopper is waiting, an automated voice will tell the shopper her current wait time. But if she presses 1, she could immediately chat with one of the available agents. Because Vera Bradley’s agents typically work on three chats at once, there is typically little wait for live chat, she says.

During the year’s slow periods, such as the summer months, Vera Bradley has its agents make “Happy Birthday” calls to its shoppers.

It started these calls on a whim, but it turns out to be a winning initiative, Campbell says. Some of its agents really enjoy doing these calls and will volunteer for them, she says. Shoppers also respond positively and enjoy hearing the message, she says. The merchant also sends a 25% off promotional code via email on shoppers’ birthdays. Those coupons have a 9.6% redemption rate, which is “way higher” than its average redemption rate, Campbell says, without revealing more.

“When a new customer comes to the brand, you want to make sure they are taken care of to the best of your ability,” Campbell says. “You want them to remember that great experience — when it’s your daughter’s birthday or your mom’s birthday — so they are coming back to your brand for those occasions as well.”

And many shoppers do remember. 22% of online shoppers say a past experience with a retailer is one the most important factors when deciding where to shop online for the holiday season, according to a Digital Commerce 360/Bizrate Insights survey of 1,088 online shoppers in September 2022.

Net promoter score improves

Campbell says all these features have helped improve Vera Bradley’s Net Promoter Score, or the number shoppers give when asked, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely they are to recommend Vera Bradley to a friend?” While she wouldn’t reveal the actual number, she says it improved by 3.1 points year over year in 2022.

The customer service platform’s features and tools also keep its employees happy, Campbell says. Managers can easily pull reports on how their employees are performing, whereas previously they would have had to ask IT for this request. Agents can also see their customer service rating and how many queries they are responding to in real time and see how it compares to their peers. This real-time data helps create a fun, competitive atmosphere, she says.

After last year’s holiday season, Vera Bradley “took a pulse” on the satisfaction level of its company employees with an engagement score. This metric is sometimes called an E-Sat and measures employees’ engagement level with their job, if they are planning to stay with the company and if they see value in their work. The customer service team E-Sat score improved by five points year over year, which Campbell says was huge.

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The retailer typically does not promote its products during the Cyber 5 holiday shopping period. That changed in 2022. Patagonia promoted Worn Wear, its online secondhand store, on Cyber Monday. 

Patagonia has historically eschewed promoting its merchandise during the Cyber 5 period spanning Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. Marketing is typically limited to its in-store repair services on Black Friday, Agrawal says.

“We’ve been anti-consumerist in that way,” Agrawal says. “But we chose to participate in Cyber Monday to say if you’re going to buy something, we will reward you for buying [used].”

On Cyber Monday (Nov. 28 this year), Patagonia.com redirected shoppers to the retailer’s Worn Wear website. Patagonia enticed shoppers with a 20% discount on anything purchased through its resale online store. 

The event was a success, Agrawal says. Cyber Monday 2022 was the Worn Wear website’s second most popular web traffic day since the Worn Wear online store launched in 2020. In 2020, Patagonia.com shoppers could click on a button located on Patagonia’s main website landing page that led to the Worn Wear store. 2022’s strategy automatically redirected web traffic to Patagonia.com to www.wornwear.patagonia.com.

This year, 70% of all Worn Wear Cyber Monday online sales were from first-time customers, Agrawal says. 

Patagonia ranks No. 205 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of the largest e-retailers in North America.

Patagonia learns how shoppers search for second-hand merchandise

The retailer is tracking how many new customers are buying from its Worn Wear online store and how many will come back. That will be a long-term process, Agrawal says, as the retailer hopes consumers don’t need to buy new items for years. 

“We’re not trying to have customers buy something every few months or even seasonally,” Agrawal says. 

The goal, Agrawal says, is to have customers hold on to gear longer than they might with other resale programs. The average time that someone starts to sell something back to Patagonia is about five to seven years of use, she says. 

Some questions Agrawal says Patagonia reviews include: How long are customers keeping our garments? What can we do to make sure they’re keeping it in good repair during that time? How many new customers are we getting? 

Worn Wear items influence future product design

Agrawal says Patagonia also tries to understand what resale categories people are gravitating toward and why, versus which categories are less in demand.

“It’s fascinating data,” she says. Some items, like Patagonia outerwear jackets and rain gear, resell well, she says. Customers also “can’t get enough” of Patagonia’s bags, especially its black full bag.

“[These items] don’t stay very long on the website. But there are others that just don’t resell as well,” Agrawal says, without highlighting which ones. “We have to think about how to continue to be a responsible business. We want to build things that can have multiple owners — or, if it’s one owner that can [use] it throughout their whole lifetime, and hopefully, generationally after that.”

Patagonia aims to track what items are resold and how old those items are when they’re resold to Patagonia’s Worn Wear online store. If a product is repeatedly sent back for resale, that brings up questions to the design team, Agrawal says.

If a garment/product is returned well before the average five- to seven-year cycle, Agrawal says Patagonia might change the product’s design, or stop producing it altogether. 

“We decide whether we will no longer make that SKU if it really only sells once since that’s not part of our brand value,” she says. “Or we wonder if we [designed] it a different way, whether it would be better for resale later.”

Based on this data, Patagonia alters its plans for future products.

“Bringing back that data to product design and actually thinking about circularity in different ways from design to resale and repair [is helpful],” Agrawal says.

Patagonia promotes gear repair

The same goes for repair requests. If certain items are frequently returned for repairs, the retailer reassesses what problems could be rectified during product design. Items sent in for repairs are completed at Patagonia’s Reno, Nevada, warehouse.

In September 2022, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard announced the company’s new ownership to two entities: Patagonia Purposes Trust and Holdfast Collective. Profit not reinvested back into Patagonia will be distributed as dividends to protect the planet, according to a release.

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The lower prices in November also reflect a 3.2% decrease from October, marking the third consecutive month in which online prices decreased.

Discounts during the Cyber 5 period of Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday helped drive the lower prices, according to Adobe Analytics. Specifically, online toy prices decreased 7.7% year over year and 4.2% month over month. Online prices in the sporting goods category decreased 5.7% year over year and 4.3% month over month.

Adobe uses the Fisher Price Index to track ecommerce prices, as well as its data based on 1 trillion visits to retail sites and over 100 million SKUs in 18 product categories.

On a year-over-year basis, nine categories registered online price increases and nine categories registered decreases.

Standout categories including electronics, with online prices decreasing 13.4% year over year, which is the largest year-over-year drop since 2014. This is notable, according to Adobe, because the electronics category comprises a large share of online sales.

“Price movements in electronics have a significant impact on overall inflation online,” Adobe said in a release.

Computer prices also decreased 18% year over year, which again was the largest online price decrease since 2014. This is the 23rd consecutive month online prices decreased in the computer category.

Online prices increase in non-promotional categories, but at a slower rate

15 of the 18 categories Adobe tracks had month-over-month price decreases, again driven by the Cyber 5 sales.

However, online prices in categories that are not typically gifts, such as grocery, are still increasing. Grocery prices increased 13.7% year over year in November and increased 0.3% from October.

But, this 13.7% increase is a slowdown in growth from August, September and October, when online grocery prices increased more than 14% year over year in each month, according to Adobe.

The two other categories that incurred price increases on a month-over-month basis were non-prescription drugs, and medical equipment and supplies.

Inflation is cooling down in other non-promotional categories, such as pet products, according to Adobe. Online pet product prices were up 11% year over year in November, but down 0.2% month over month.

“While the November drop in online prices was driven by major discounting on days including Cyber Monday and Black Friday, we also see signs of overall ecommerce inflation cooling,” said Patrick Brown, vice president of growth marketing and insights at Adobe, in a release. “In categories such as groceries and personal care, which are not promotional in nature, we are seeing price increases come down from their heights in late summer and early fall.”

Inflation is still top-of-mind for online holiday shoppers, especially over the Cyber 5 weekend, according to a Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights survey of 1,095 online shoppers. Half of shoppers said high prices and 46% of shoppers said inflation impacted their Cyber 5 shopping. These were the top two responses.

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Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights surveyed 1,095 online shoppers to understand their behaviors and experiences, what impacted them and the role of both the online channel and the physical store. We specifically dug into the role of the economy, including prices and promotions, as well as inventory and delivery issues we’re likely to see throughout the remainder of the season.

A few questions to ponder

• Will the 2022 season come down to prices?
• Will the anxiety and unease that shoppers feel about the high price of goods impact the remainder of the season and into 2023?
• Will supply chain turn out to be less significant for holiday shoppers?
• Are the tools that are inherent to online shopping such as price comparison reason enough to shop more in this channel?
• Does the physical store continue to retake business from online post-COVID?

We asked online shoppers to think about what has impacted their holiday season to date, and their message was clear. High prices and inflation — and their likely role on personal finances — have impacted holiday shopping among four in 10 online shoppers. Along the same lines, online promotions were a factor for 31% of those surveyed.

The other issues pale in comparison. Even supply chain concerns, which were anticipated to be an issue, were noted by only 21% of respondents. Other broader issues came in as follows: fear of the unknown (13%), global dynamics (10%) and midterm elections (8%). In open-ended answers, participants also noted COVID and health issues, a lack of lists from their gift recipients and personal circumstances.

Which retailers shoppers selected was also predicated on saving money, from cheapest prices to free shipping and appealing promotions, while the right in-stock products also are a factor.

This “price” theme continues as the No. 1 reason for retailer selection. 33% of online shoppers choose to shop with specific retailers if they have the cheapest prices. Given the current economic conditions, it’s instructive to look at the others that revolve around money. They include:

• Free shipping: 26%
• Appealing promotions: 22%
• Email offers: 7%
• Loyalty/rewards programs: 5%
• Free return shipping: 4%

Finding the right products and ones that are in-stock were second only to cheapest prices when it came to retailer selection. I was happy to see that 33% said they liked the featured products, on par with cheap prices. Meanwhile, 14% gave a nod to having exclusive items.

Being in-stock ranked No. 3 on the list at 27%. Along with that sentiment was online shoppers who were afraid products would sell out if not purchased during the Cyber 5 timeframe (16%).

Conveniences count but don’t trump price. Numerous elements fell under the umbrella of conveniences, but their influence among shoppers was much less of a factor in retailer selection:

• Wish lists: 9%
• BOPIS: 3%
• Curbside: 2%
• Buy now, pay later: 3%
• Physical location beyond store for returns: 2%
• Store where someone could return product: 2%
• Long return window: 2%

Prices can force shoppers to alter behavior

Self-gifting was strong over the Cyber 5, along with online shoppers showing a heightened sensitivity to potential delivery, availability and buying via mobile. 34% of online shoppers surveyed made personal purchases, and I think many were taking advantage of the deals they came across.

Though limited in nature, 15% purchased something different due to a promotion. Savvy shoppers often opt for slower shipping because of incentives, as we saw among 12% of respondents. Surprisingly, only 7% had a retailer price match, though perhaps that may see a bounce just before Christmas as final markdowns kick in. Lastly, just 6% indicated they returned a product that was found cheaper elsewhere.

Ensuring shoppers get the items they want and ongoing inventory concerns drives shoppers to check availability under more circumstances. They were aggressive, as one in five checked for estimated delivery dates on products that interested them. Similarly, 18% checked product availability online before placing an order for delivery. While smaller in scope, 10% purchased something different due to availability. Same-day delivery continues to have a niche audience, as 8% placed such an online order.

Mobile purchasing is clearly an important convenience, as 18% of survey respondents said they purchased via mobile devices and 16% via mobile apps.

Omnichannel activity is significant. Shoppers continue to want to know about store product availability (18%), need access to store information (14%) and choose a store location to pick up product (13%).

Online shoppers took the time to try and save money

A hunt for promotions and marketplace shopping tops the list of Cyber 5 activities. A recurring theme, coming in at No. 1 among respondent activity, was the 36% who checked for coupons and promotions. 20% were watching their dollars and bought less as prices seemed higher due to rising inflation. Other price-sensitive behavior included the 16% who abandoned a cart when no free shipping was available. 12% opted for slower shipping and the 12% also took advantage of buy now, pay later (BNPL) financing options.

Customer experiences with online promotions suggested they varied and saw early availability

From a volume standpoint, 27% felt promotions were about the same as 2021, and 21% felt they were harder to find. Meanwhile, 16% believed they were limited to best sellers or a handful of products. 13% were not as concerned due to early season buying, and 23% were simply more focused on finding available products.

Available promotions also were important as 26% indicated they varied across the sites shopped. Some 21% indicated they were better earlier in the season. Despite all the discussion, only 14% thought the discounts were deeper than 2021, with 10% weighing in that they were rarely sitewide.

Shoppers like to find free shipping but are taking a more holistic view to saving money

Our research shows 56% of online shoppers surveyed received free shipping on 75% or more of their orders. One theory about the changing role of free shipping is that with shoppers focused heavily on finding cheap prices, some may have sacrificed free shipping or factored that loss into their total cost of the order.

Historically speaking, free shipping on orders seems to have declined since 2020. 55% had free shipping on 75% or more of their orders in 2021, down from 2019’s high of 78%:

• 2022: 56%
• 2021: 55%
• 2020: 66%
• 2019: 78%

Reasons for these findings may include a lack of availability of free shipping across the board. Another thought is that due to stock levels, retailers limited their unconditional free shipping. Instead, they only extended free shipping when shoppers reached a predetermined threshold. 

Moving beyond prices and promotions, I now want to shift gears to explore the buyer timing and channel section. Our research highlights that 68% of online buyers have already completed at least half of their holiday shopping.

Holiday shoppers were more aggressive in their holiday buying in 2022

Year-over-year online shoppers have significantly more of their holiday gift buying completed. When looking at a four-year pattern when it came to having completed 50%+ holiday gift buying, only 2020 comes close to this year’s aggressive behavior.

• 2022: 68%
• 2021: 55%
• 2020: 65%
• 2019: 57%

61% of online shoppers have completed at least half of their gift buying online. That contrasts with the 33% of online shoppers who have done less than half online and the 6% who haven’t used the online channel at all.

Year-over-year, online shoppers have completed slightly more of their buying online (50%+).

• 2022:  61%
• 2021:  59%
• 2020:  66%
• 2019:  57%

Online buyers continue to gravitate more to the web for gift buying

Just over half of online buyers (51%) bought more online year over year, while 37% spent the same amount. Despite the economic times, just 12% indicated their online holiday gift buying was down from 2021.

Early deals and push among retailers only impacted a niche group of holiday buyers

There was some initial sentiment that the early season — including heavy Amazon Prime Day activity and subsequent Early Access sales — might alter the course of the 2022 holiday season. In fact, what our survey respondents suggested was that October and pre-Thanksgiving elicited mixed results. 36% purchased more gifts during this time frame, while similar numbers of shoppers purchased the same amount early (32%). 32% combined to purchase less (17%) or not at all (15%).

Deals drive attention to Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Shoppers are focused on Black Friday and Cyber Monday as Thanksgiving-related days get more limited attention. Just over half of shoppers (54%) take advantage of Black Friday, while almost four in 10 shoppers buy online over Cyber Monday.

Cyber 5 buying was consistent from 2022 to 2021, with Black Friday leading the way

Online shopper behavior is relatively entrenched year over year. The biggest change came in the 2021 Cyber 5, when Cyber Monday and Thanksgiving weekends had significant shifts.

Cyber Monday

• 2022: 39%
• 2021: 37%
• 2020: 56%
• 2019: 58%

Black Friday

• 2022: 54%
• 2021: 51%
• 2020: 57%
• 2019: 53%

The store remains an entrenched factor in shopping. Our survey suggests that online shoppers tend to shop about the same or less in store. Only 27% said they shopped more in physical stores during Cyber 5 this year.

Online shoppers remain predisposed to the online channel. Year over year, 2022 versus 2021 shoppers used online:

• Less: 35% vs. 35%
• Same: 38% vs. 34%
• More: 27% vs. 31%

This holiday season is predicated on price. Though shoppers are buying, they are cognizant of the economics and hoping to find good prices. Of course, they remain aware of inventory and still want timely delivery, but mostly they are about those cheaper prices and online promotions. There are just a few weeks left and we will observe how retailers will balance promotions with profitability to end the year on a high note.

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The post The Shopper Speaks: Promotions and prices power Cyber 5 buying appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

By the end of November, the web-only merchant that specializes in personalized gifts is operating at its peak to create 40,000 personalized ornaments and tens of thousands of other personalized stockings, blankets, mugs, cutting boards, champagne flutes and other gifts per day.

Personalization Mall’s 365,000-square-foot facility in Bolingbrook, Ill.

November and December bring in roughly 35-40% of all Personalization Mall’s annual revenue, says Dan Grebel, vice president of operations at PersonalizationMall.com. The rest of the year, the facility has a 10th of the employees — 400 — who can handle the production volume during the 10-month offseason.

Personalization Mall’s history and business model

Personalization Mall launched in 1998 as an online “mall” where consumers could choose from 20 different items to personalize. Today, the brand offers 2,000 unique “blank items” that shoppers can have personalized with one of 14 different methods, such as laser engraving, embroidery, glass printing, 3D printing, sandblasting and others, plus variations within each method. In total, the merchant now offers 40,000 different product designs, with new designs created each year.

New for this year is an agreement with The Elf on The Shelf. Shoppers can personalize apparel for their elves or purchase personalized items with the The Elf on the Shelf image on it.

Vice president of operations Dan Grebel provides a media tour of Personalization Mall’s production facility.

Bed Bath & Beyond acquired Personalization Mall in 2016 for $190 million. In 2020, the web-only merchant again changed hands and 1-800-Flowers.com (No. 53 in the Digital Commerce 360’s Top 1000 database) bought Personalization Mall for $252 million from Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (No. 31).

1-800-Flowers.com Inc. owns 17 gifting brands, including Harry & David and Cheryl’s Cookies. The Personalization Mall logo and link to its site is included in the banner of brands that runs across each of these merchants’ websites. The parent company is still working on integrating Personalization Mall’s items into its other brands, such as offering a personalized Easter basket with Harry & David goodies instead.

Personalization Mall’s Bolingbrook, Illinois, facility opened in 2019. It includes a second 100,000-square-foot building for administration and warehousing, giving the online retailer 465,000 square feet of space. This is an 86% increase from its previous facilities that totaled 250,000 square feet.

During a media tour, the merchant showcased its facility as it geared up for Black Friday and the 2022 holiday season, and the process a product goes through from purchase to creation to shipping.

How a blank item becomes personalized at Personalization Mall

After a shopper clicks buy on PersonalizationMall.com, that item is placed in a queue for employees to pick at the warehouse. The warehouse runs four major waves of picks a day, in which employees select all the blank products for the most recent orders. It takes about two hours to pick the roughly 40,000 products in each wave, Grebel says. About 10% of orders during the holiday season have some level of rush shipping, Grebel says. Those orders are picked in smaller waves throughout the day to ensure they are shipping to the customer on time.

Personalization Mall’s warehouse is filled with blank items, which are then picked to be personalized in its attached facility.

Once the items are picked, employees bring them to various areas where they are personalized. Some items, like a name on a stocking, can be personalized right away in the embroidery area. On a screen, the employee can see exactly what the customer saw on her computer screen when she approved the order. When the shopper designed the order on her own computer, she was interacting directly with the software that the machines use, Grebel says. This means the employee doesn’t have to reenter any information, as the software already knows the letters it needs.

The associate then lines up the stocking underneath the machine and hits Enter. The machine gives an estimate of how long the embroidery will take, typically four to six minutes for a stocking, and then goes to work.

Each associate is manning three machines at a time — typically two smaller items, like stockings, and a more time-intensive item, such as a skirt for a Christmas tree, which could take 17 minutes. Each employee typically can embroider 12 to 13 items per hour, Grebel says.

Other items are more complex, such as certain ornaments and personalized blankets that require a two-step process with a heat transfer. About 50% of Personalization Mall’s products require a heat transfer, which is when the image the customer selected is first printed and then transferred onto the item using heat.

Personalization Mall has about 40 printers for this process, all housed in a pressurized part of the facility with temperate and humidity control. Those printers continuously spit out images that are applied to the final product within hours.

Quality assurance for each item is paramount at PersonalizationMall.com

Upon creating an item, employees attach a barcode to it and send the product to quality assurance. Employees scan each item, and an employee compares the final product against the proof image the customer approved on its website to ensure it matches.

“When we’re producing items, we understand that peoples’ expectations with gifting in general is usually a little higher than their own standards because they want to wow their recipient,” says Jeff Chun, vice president of marketing at PersonalizationMall.com.

Not only is the employee checking to make sure the personalization is correct, but also that the presentation looks good and the product is suitable to give as a gift. For example, Personalization Mall will remake an item if it is slightly off center or the product is even slightly damaged, Chun says.

“We view it as much healthier as a business to absorb that and just make a new product that will wow them, than to send something that’s subpar to our customers because long-term, we want those customers to come back, and so we want to present them with the best possible option,” he says.

Repeat orders are a key part of its business, representing roughly 50% of sales, Chun says.

Personalization Mall’s 4,000 employees produce 150,000 items per day during the holiday season.

Associates ship completed items within one to two days. In total, it takes about five business days for the product to be created and then landed on the shopper’s door.

If, for some reason, a product is damaged during transit, the merchant will remake the product.

Because each product is unique to each shopper, customer service is an important part of PersonalizationMall.com. The merchant employs 40 agents year-round, and that swells to about 100 agents during the holiday season. During the holiday season, call volume can be about 400% higher than during the summer.

These agents work in the production facility, so they can walk over to where that consumer’s product is if needed to resolve an issue, Chun says. Shoppers call with questions before, during and after placing an order.

Customer service agents require more training compared with seasonal warehouse workers, Chun says. And so Personalization Mall hires agents in the summer to start training for the holiday season, whereas it onboards the bulk of its seasonal workers in November.

Chun says finding labor has not been an issue for the retailer this year, unlike in 2021, when it was harder to attract good-quality candidates, he says.

2022 holiday season goals for Personalization Mall

With surging sales during 2020 and 2021, Personalization Mall is looking to match 2021’s holiday sales figures for the 2022 season, Chun says.

“The last two years have been exceptional for us,” Chun says. “We’ve had record demand and we’re seeing good engagement with the consumer right now. Our expectation is to be on par with last year.”

PersonalizationMall.com’s online sales grew more than 50% in its 2021 fiscal second quarter ended Dec. 27, 2020, which includes holiday sales during the first year of the pandemic. Plus, it grew sales 4% in its 2022 fiscal second quarter ended Dec. 26, 2021.

Chun says even though the 2022 shopper is dealing with inflation and is being more careful with dollars, the retailer still expects a strong holiday season.

“Even when the customer is a little bit more selective with how they are spending their dollar, personalization is a way where you don’t have to spend a lot to say a lot,” Chun says.

Overall, Chun predicts the sales pattern of the holiday season will look more like pre-pandemic 2019, unlike 2020 and 2021, when shoppers started purchasing much earlier in the season to ensure they could find the items they wanted at a time when supply chain issues prevented retailers from getting all the merchandise they ordered.

While some retailers started promoting the holidays before Halloween, and many released promotions and marketing materials during Amazon’s Early Access Sale Oct. 12-13, Personalization Mall did not see any impact or notable pull forward of holiday sales because of this event, Chun says.

How Personalization Mall views Amazon and its competitors

Plus, as a maker of personalized goods, Personalization Mall is one of the few merchants that doesn’t count the web’s largest merchant — Amazon.com Inc. — as a direct competitor, Chun says.

“Fortunately, personalization is a very specialized industry and so a lot of the big retailers can’t do it and they don’t want to, necessarily, and that’s where our expertise is. That’s where our strengths lie and it’s given us an advantage that we’ve been able to stand out among some of these well-known retailers,” Chun says.

Amazon has not done personalization on a major scale that the retailer is aware of, Chun says.

“We’ve been fortunate to be somewhat insulated from that effect,” he says. “It’s a great boon for the consumer to have a lot of choice in digital shopping, but for retailers, it puts pressure on the retailer for how they can differentiate themselves. But being in personalization, we’ve stood out.”

The retailer does, however, have a number of online competitors that also offer personalized products. They include Shutterfly Inc. and Walgreen Co., which offers personalized stationery and home décor products. Chun says Personalization Mall stands out from them with its large assortment and 14 different ways to personalize products.

Within the Digital Commerce 360 rankings of top online retailers, 260 merchants offer product customization in some way, such as engravings on jewelry, a specific color combination on sneakers or tailored specifications on furniture. But, when looking at retailers that specialized in this area, only six Top 1000 retailers are in the custom merchandise subcategory and only five retailers are in the greeting card category that also offer a number personalized products.

These 11 merchants lag behind the larger Top 1000 merchants, with a collective five-year compound annual growth rate of 8.9% compared with 22.4% for the larger Top 1000. But for 2022, Digital Commerce 360 projects this group to grow 11.5% year over year compared with a projected collective growth of the Top 1000 at 4.2% year over year.

The final few weeks of year are paramount for Personalization Mall. Cyber Monday is the merchant’s top day but its facility will continue to operate all day and night until the final few days of the season.

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The post A peek inside Personalization Mall’s warehouse during peak season appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.