Dive Brief:
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E-commerce is the story of the season, according to several studies, including ChannelAdvisor Corp.’s measure of a 14% increase in web sales from Nov. 27 to Dec. 21. Amazon says it added some 10 million Prime memberships during the time, though it didn’t clarify how many of those are trial memberships, which are limited and free.
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Shopping not only started early, but also continued into Christmas Day, when e-sales were up 8.3% compared to last year. Average order value rose 6.2% on Christmas Day this year compared to a year ago, according to IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark, using data from 8,000 retailers.
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The delivery misses of last year were avoided for the most part, according to research by fulfillment tracking company Sewickley, PA-based ShipMatrix. The company found that UPS delivered 99% of its express packages on time on Dec. 22 and 23, and that FedEx similarly made 99% of deliveries of its express packages those days.
Dive Insight:
It’s been a long, strange holiday season, with “Black Friday” losing much of its special significance for shoppers as retailers started holding sales early and seemingly never ended them. These early numbers show the great boost e-commerce has received from traditional brick-and-mortar retailers — at least the ones that have improved their own websites and apps and worked hard to increase the efficiency and speed of their fulfillment systems.
And, of course, the efficiencies of e-commerce are not just coming from Amazon. Nordstrom, Groupon, Best Buy, among other retailers, as well as startups like Shyp are all in the process of adding fulfillment centers, using stores as mini-warehouses, and finding other ways to disrupt and streamline inventory management and delivery.
