Stitch Labs, the leading inventory and multichannel selling platform for retailers and wholesalers, today revealed holiday trends for online retail sales, providing key insights for businesses heading into a season that accounts for 40 percent of yearly sales.
Stitch investigated data from October 2013 to January 2014, concluding sales in January accounted for 152 percent more sales than in October. Retailers can use the findings to better prepare for the 2014 holiday season, increasing revenue and profit. Additional results include:
Online shopping reserved for weekdays in October
Mondays are consistently the biggest day of the week for online orders. Shoppers appear to step away from transactions over the weekend, and instead place the most orders during the week. Mondays were the highest day for sales activity in October 2013, while Saturdays sank to the bottom.
Sales decline a week before Christmas
In 2013, online retailers saw a 46 percent decline in sales from two weeks before Christmas to the week immediately before Christmas. Even though retailers can fulfill and ship orders up to December 23 , they are potentially losing a full week of sales by not offering expedited shipping to capture last minute shoppers.
Sales extend through the New Year
January 2014 sales orders were 152 percent above those in October 2013. Thanksgiving weekend is typically the busiest time for sales; however, the first six days of January this year were actually greater than those from Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday last year combined.
Channel type directly affects value of orders
While Amazon, eBay and Etsy are the most powerful online marketplaces, shopping carts such as Shopify and Big Commerce command the highest dollar value per individual order. This means consumers don’t tend to purchase multiple items when shopping on Amazon, eBay and Etsy, but instead are price shopping.
“These findings can help businesses prepare for the influx of orders during the busiest days of the season,” said Brandon Levey, CEO and founder of Stitch Labs. “As we head into the most influential time of year for retailers, shopping cart management, shipping fulfillment strategy, inventory tracking and order management become vital. We hope to alleviate some of the preparation stresses while helping owners make smarter business decisions.”
Data used for analysis was based on orders synced with Stitch Labs from October 1, 2013 to January 31, 2014, which is an aggregation of more than 2.5 million orders, totaling more than $100 million in sales from 3,000 small businesses, spanning a wide range of products.
About Stitch Labs
Since 2011, Stitch Labs has been creating software that simplifies commerce, decisions, and life for retailers and wholesalers. The intuitive Stitch Labs platform streamlines inventory, orders and data across multiple channels. It also delivers the most robust integrations with top commerce applications such as Square, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify, Quickbooks, Xero, BigCommerce and others. To learn more about how the Stitch Labs platform unifies sales channels, fulfills orders faster, and gathers brilliant data, visit www.stitchlabs.com or follow @StitchLabs on Twitter. For press inquiries please email press@stitchlabs.com.
Stitch investigated data from October 2013 to January 2014, concluding sales in January accounted for 152 percent more sales than in October. Retailers can use the findings to better prepare for the 2014 holiday season, increasing revenue and profit. Additional results include:
Online shopping reserved for weekdays in October
Mondays are consistently the biggest day of the week for online orders. Shoppers appear to step away from transactions over the weekend, and instead place the most orders during the week. Mondays were the highest day for sales activity in October 2013, while Saturdays sank to the bottom.
Sales decline a week before Christmas
In 2013, online retailers saw a 46 percent decline in sales from two weeks before Christmas to the week immediately before Christmas. Even though retailers can fulfill and ship orders up to December 23 , they are potentially losing a full week of sales by not offering expedited shipping to capture last minute shoppers.
Sales extend through the New Year
January 2014 sales orders were 152 percent above those in October 2013. Thanksgiving weekend is typically the busiest time for sales; however, the first six days of January this year were actually greater than those from Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday last year combined.
Channel type directly affects value of orders
While Amazon, eBay and Etsy are the most powerful online marketplaces, shopping carts such as Shopify and Big Commerce command the highest dollar value per individual order. This means consumers don’t tend to purchase multiple items when shopping on Amazon, eBay and Etsy, but instead are price shopping.
“These findings can help businesses prepare for the influx of orders during the busiest days of the season,” said Brandon Levey, CEO and founder of Stitch Labs. “As we head into the most influential time of year for retailers, shopping cart management, shipping fulfillment strategy, inventory tracking and order management become vital. We hope to alleviate some of the preparation stresses while helping owners make smarter business decisions.”
Data used for analysis was based on orders synced with Stitch Labs from October 1, 2013 to January 31, 2014, which is an aggregation of more than 2.5 million orders, totaling more than $100 million in sales from 3,000 small businesses, spanning a wide range of products.
About Stitch Labs
Since 2011, Stitch Labs has been creating software that simplifies commerce, decisions, and life for retailers and wholesalers. The intuitive Stitch Labs platform streamlines inventory, orders and data across multiple channels. It also delivers the most robust integrations with top commerce applications such as Square, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify, Quickbooks, Xero, BigCommerce and others. To learn more about how the Stitch Labs platform unifies sales channels, fulfills orders faster, and gathers brilliant data, visit www.stitchlabs.com or follow @StitchLabs on Twitter. For press inquiries please email press@stitchlabs.com.
