For the 2021 holiday shopping season, our December 2021 survey revealed that 31% of US online adults said shipping times were longer than they expected (i.e., deliveries were late), 30% said estimated shipping time frames were frequently longer than they expected, and 16% said they frequently had online orders canceled completely. Imagine the dashed expectations!

Our new research, Leverage Order Management Systems To Conquer US Consumers’ Elevated Fulfillment Expectations, outlines how retailers should configure their order management system (OMS) to meet customers’ rising delivery expectations — advice that’s pertinent both now and into 2023.

• Underpromise on delivery timing to avoid 2021’s mishaps. Retailers must accurately manage customer expectations — at any time of year. What customers need from you: transparency about delivery timelines, clear schedules and deadlines prominently displayed, and investment in optimization technology such as OMSes. That optimization enables retailers to simultaneously promise delivery timelines that they can meet

The 2022 end-of-year holiday season is well underway: NRF reported that a record-breaking 196.7 million US shoppers showed up both online and in store during the shopping period from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday (November 24 to 28).

To get a better sense of what retailers did online on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we reviewed 115 retailer and brand home pages, which span several product categories. Among other highlights, we found that:

• Overall retailer participation was high, but value was mixed. Similar to previous years, nearly all retail sites we reviewed had some form of promotion. This year, 90% offered discounts on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday (see figure). Just one in five, however, had a sitewide sale, and fewer than one in 10 offered free shipping as a promotion (Note: This number excludes those that offer free shipping year-round). Instead, many offered sales on select product categories

Our report, A Retailer’s Guide To The 2022 Holiday Season, reviews lessons learned from last year’s holiday season and advises retailers and brands on tactics to prepare for the next few months. This year, we’re suggesting five key areas for retailers and brands to focus on, as follows:

1. Meet and exceed customer expectations with authentic marketing. In 2021, promotional email volume skyrocketed as brands worked to reengage customers. Rather than overwhelm customers’ inboxes, retailers should focus on offers that their customers really want. One way to do this is with personalized ads. Target leveraged insights from its Circle loyalty program during the 2021 holiday season to personalize its offers and experienced an $8 to $10 lift in promotional basket size compared to mass offers and a conversion rate of 70% compared to 40%.

When it comes to authentic marketing, retailers can appeal to values-motivated customers, which Forrester defines as

Forrester expects US digital-influenced retail sales to grow from $2.7 trillion in 2022 to $3.8 trillion in 2027. These figures represent a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.2%.

• Forrester defines digital-influenced offline retail sales as purchases from consumers who research products online but then buy them physically, at the store.
• The term “research” is broad: Consumers look for product price, quality, features, availability, warranty, shipping information, consumer ratings, and more. They also compare a product’s price and features with those of other products before making a brand or purchase decision.
• Digital-influenced total retail sales (or, simply, digital-influenced retail sales) represent the total impact of the internet and include online retail sales and digital-influenced offline retail sales (see figure below).

Digital-influenced retail sales’ share of total US retail sales will rise to 70% in 2027. In that same year, US digital-influenced offline retail sales will grow to $2.2