Online holiday sales to reach $61 billion – ready, retailers?

Retailers have been focused on extending the holiday shopping season this year, and for good reason: clocking in with 26 days between Black Friday and Christmas, this year has one more “shopping day” than last year but is still five fewer than 2012. From rolling out holiday promotions as early as September to unofficially declaring Thanksgiving Day the new Black Friday, a myriad of tactics have already been deployed in hopes of securing a bigger piece of the holiday profit pie.

It looks like their efforts are paying off. Market researcher comScore announced this week that holiday online spending is forecasted to rise 16% from last year to reach $61.0 billion in spending for the November-December period. This report is even more optimistic than Shop.org’s forecast from early October, which predicted online sales to grow between 8-11% this holiday season.

Mobile will play a significant role this year as well, projected to reach $7.9 billion in retail spending and account for 13% of this year’s total online holiday commerce. This is further proof of mobile’s rising power in digital commerce – this year’s predictions represent a 25% increase in growth year-over-year. With new developments like Apple Pay streamlining the process of mobile transactions, it’s no surprise that more consumers are projected to shop on their smartphones or tablets than ever before.

This report is good news for retailers, but also turns up the heat in terms of competition. With so much potential profit on the table, the market will only get noisier as the countdown to the holiday shopping season starts in earnest. Need help in rising above the crowd? Check out our tips for a profitable holiday season – and get cracking!