Salesforce shows Cyber Week report on global online sale hitting $275 Billion

Salesforce has issued its annual Cyber Week study, which examines shopping data from over one billion customers on the Salesforce Customer 360 platform and activities in commerce, marketing, and customer support. Overall, global online sales in 2021 will reach an all-time high of $275 billion, up 2% from 2020.

“While online sales leveled off over Cyber Week compared to the holiday surge we experienced during the pandemic, digital shoppers drove significant sales for the first few weeks of November and maintained the high Cyber Week baseline they established in 2020,” said Rob Garf, VP and GM of Retail, Salesforce.

He added, “Consumers entered into this holiday season aware of supply chain bottlenecks and inflation and shopped early and often to smooth out the demand we usually see concentrated over one week.”

According to the statistics, consumers who were not discouraged by increased pricing, lesser promotions, and decreased product inventory drove robust early November growth. As a result of these early-season buyers working ahead of the customary shopping period, Cyber Week (November 223-29) witnessed subdued growth.

Top Salesforce 2021 shopping insights

• The major digital holiday shopping period is over: Consumers spent $74 billion in the first three weeks of November (up 10% YoY) and $297 billion internationally, signaling the start of the holiday shopping season (up 5 percent YoY). Black Friday (up 2% YoY globally) was Cyber Week’s biggest single shopping day, as holiday demand was spread out across the whole month of November.
• Consumers find high prices and fewer discounts: Deals were harder to come by this year due to holiday inflation and reduced discounts. In comparison to last year, the average selling price (ASP) increased by 11% in the United States and 5% globally during Cyber Week. Meanwhile, the global average discount for Cyber Week was 24%. (down 8 percent).
• Holiday supply chain crunch leaves shoppers with fewer gift options: Because of early and chronic supply chain challenges, digital shelves were not as well-stocked as they had been in previous years. In comparison to last year, product catalogs (number of products sold) decreased by 5% internationally during Cyber Week.
• Holiday inflation leads to holiday financing: Consumers flocked to Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) stores with increasing costs and fewer discounts. BNPL usage increased by 29% year over year (8 percent of all orders) during Cyber Week, with over $22 billion in Christmas orders financed. On Black Friday, BNPL was used to pay for 7% of all global orders.
• Consumers favor stores with order online, curbside pickup services: During Cyber Week, consumers continued to place a premium on health, safety, convenience, and trust.

Salesforce powers holiday shopping

As the epidemic pushed buyers into online purchases, Salesforce enabled companies like Crocs, e.l.f. Cosmetics and others around the world double down on digital this year. Salesforce clients drove more than 100 million orders in November, setting a new high for the holiday season. Delivering fast, easy, and tailored digital experiences is more vital than ever as consumers continue to purchase online, and this was made possible by:

• Einstein: Artificial intelligence is still playing a significant influence in how people shop. During Cyber Week, buyers were exposed to 73.6 million Einstein-powered AI-driven product recommendations.
• Commerce Cloud: On Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, global digital sales powered by Commerce Cloud increased by 4%, 7%, and 9%, respectively, year over year.
• Marketing Cloud: During Cyber Week, global marketing communications soared, with 40 billion messages delivered, up 34% year on year. YoY, mobile push alerts climbed by 114%, and email volume increased by 25%.
• Service Cloud: During Cyber Week, call volumes surged by 39% year over year. During Cyber Week, the number of service cases created climbed by 38% year over year. During Cyber Week, almost 5.3 million chatbot sessions were started.

2021 Salesforce Holiday Insights and Predictions Methodology

Salesforce analyses aggregated data to create holiday insights from the behavior of over a billion global shoppers across more than 54 countries driven by Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud data from merchants to assist retailers and brands in measuring holiday success. Salesforce’s Christmas data set uses publicly available third-party data sources and includes 24 of the top 30 U.S. online merchants on the 2021 Digital Commerce 360 list.

A digital commerce site must have transacted during the study period, which is October 1, 2019 through November 29, 2021, and met a monthly minimum visit criterion to be included in the analysis set. To ensure consistent metric calculation, additional data hygiene variables are implemented.

Salesforce’s Christmas forecasts are not reflective of the company’s operational performance or financial measures, such as GMV growth and comparable customer GMV growth.