The Holiday season was as competitive as ever and shattered sales records with brands flocking to online marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart. Plus, with technological advancements, like AI chat bots and digital agents, new trends in consumer behavior arose. With growth in brand advertising, discounts, and customer engagement across product categories, the 2024 holiday season was full of opportunities and adoption of new practices. This article dives into the sales results and trends from the 2024 holiday season and uncovers strategies for success in 2025.
Holiday 2024 Results
Total Online Sales
U.S. ecommerce had a remarkable 2024 holiday season with sales reaching a record $241.4 billion – an 8.7% increase year-over-year. This growth is particularly noteworthy compared to 2023’s more modest 4.9% YoY increase (1.78x greater in 2024). Domestic online shopping performance contributed to global online holiday sales of $1.2 trillion, marking a 3% rise from the previous year.
While not a surprise, Cyber Monday emerged as the largest shopping day for ecommerce at $13.3 billion – a strong 23% lead over Black Friday’s $10.8 billion. However, December captured the majority of seasonal spending with November contributing 46.6% of total holiday revenue. Overall, the 6-day stretch from Thanksgiving through December 3 (the day after Cyber Monday) proved most crucial with the season’s top 6 highest daily sales figures. The traditional shopping days proved their continued importance despite Amazon extending their discounted shopping period, Turkey 12, to begin on November 21.
Online Sales per Category
Category performance data also revealed a shift in consumer spending behavior over the 2024 holiday season. Three powerhouse categories signaled strong demand: electronics (generated $55.3 billion), apparel ($45.6 billion), and furniture/home goods ($29.2 billion). These 3 categories collectively accounted for 54% of total online holiday sales, reaching $130.1 billion from the 2024 season. Furthermore, each category saw year-over-year growth with electronics rising 8.8%, apparel at 9.9%, and furniture/home goods with 6.8%. At the top of year-over-year growth were the grocery and cosmetics categories with a 12.9% ($21.5 billion) and 12.2% ($7.7 billion) increase, respectively. Lastly, the sporting goods category also had strong YoY growth of 7.4% but had only slightly higher sales than the cosmetics category at $7.8 billion.
A noteworthy categorical trend was the significant shift toward premium products. The share of units sold rose by an average of 21% year-over-year with the highest growth in expensive goods like electronics (48%) and sporting goods (54%). Following these two categories were personal care products (32%) and apparel (10%). This upward tick in high-end purchases signaled consumer interest in quality items despite their expense – also proving that not all purchases made were planned gifts but rather personal investments.
Holiday 2024 Trends
Mobile Commerce
In terms of consumer shopping trends, the 2024 holiday season marked a historic point in mobile commerce. For the first time ever, mobile devices accounted for 54.5% of all online purchases – surpassing desktop shopping and representing a 6.65% increase from the previous year. Mobile commerce reached its peak on Christmas with an impressive 65% of online sales, up 2% from 2023. The magnitude of this mobile-first behavior is also represented in the sales figures from the season: of the $1.2 trillion global sales, mobile devices generated $842 billion.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence also continued to emerge as an influential trend throughout the holiday season, assisting with product recommendations, targeted offers, and customer service. These AI-powered chat bots and digital agents influenced $229 billion in global online holiday sales – representing a huge 23.5% of total revenue. AI’s impact also grew significantly from the previous year, growing 6% more to reach 19% of all online holiday transactions. Despite these strong results, a surprising 71% of U.S. online shoppers reported being unaware of using generative AI when shopping online despite many purchasing from platforms that offered AI-powered tools. Another survey found that 70% of shoppers who knowingly interacted with generative AI assistants found them beneficial to the shopping experience.
Product Discounts
Lastly, the 2024 holiday season revealed an intriguing relationship between pricing strategy and consumer demand. In many cases, demand was driven by discounts as sales rose in accordance with how deeply products were discounted. Peak discounts reached approximately 30% off – slightly lower than 2023. Electronics led with a 30.1% discount (down from 31% in 2023), followed by apparel at 23.2% (versus 24%), computers at 22.8% (versus 24%), and furniture/home goods at 19% (versus 21%). The data tells a compelling story: for every 1% reduction in price, demand increased by 1.03% “Retailers went into the season knowing they had to offer great value to appeal to price-conscious shoppers”, said Emarketer. The discounts also encouraged sales growth in higher-ticket items across categories and ultimately drove an additional $2.25 billion in online spending.
Holiday 2024 Takeaways
The 2024 holiday season revealed compelling shifts in consumer behavior that will shape strategic ecommerce planning for 2025. Despite economic uncertainties, consumers demonstrated strong purchasing confidence, particularly responding to strategic discounting across both traditional gift categories and practical purchases like appliances and furniture. A key takeaway is notably the increase in consumer spending that took place before the traditional Black Friday/Cyber Monday period. Thanks to Amazon’s extended Turkey 12 shopping period, both brands and consumers have proven their readiness to spend earlier in the holiday season. In fact, for many Brandwoven clients, sales days were nearly as big as Black Friday/Cyber Monday even before the holidays began.
Additionally, the positive reception to AI-powered shopping assists proves another emerging opportunity for future seasons. Brands should continue to lean into an enhanced online customer shopping experience to drive awareness and engagement.
Overall, the 2024 holiday season was very promising, yielding strong sales results for numerous product categories. As we look ahead to the next season, these insights present newfound expectations for both brands and consumers in holiday strategies and behavior. Early preparation, strategic pricing, and technological adoption are at the forefront of ecommerce growth.
At Brandwoven, we’re helping our client partners analyze their 2024 performance data to begin developing strategies for the year that consider brand budgets and inventory capabilities. We’re looking into potential improvements, such as utilizing Amazon’s Warehouse and Distribution, to uncover additional opportunities for margin and accurate inventory forecasting. Always on top of the ever-changing marketplace landscape, our agency is here to help you grow.