Holiday 2018: US and UK Digital Retail Trends—Amazon May Lose Prime Momentum in the Crucial Fourth Quarter

Executive Summary

In this report, we examine five online shopping trends that we expect to be prominent in the US and the UK this holiday season.

• In previous holiday periods, Amazon’s revenue growth has been supported by growth in the Prime program. This year, Amazon may lose that support, as growth in Prime membership rates has faltered over the past few months, according to survey data.
• Many consumers use multiple shopping channels before making their final purchase decisions, and we expect this trend to strengthen during the holiday season.
• E-commerce will account for more than the oft-cited “just 10%” of retail sales in the US. We estimate that the online channel will capture more than 20% of all US nonfood retail sales for the first time this holiday and more than 30% of all UK nonfood sales for the first time.
• More consumers will use voice assistants at various stages of the purchase journey this holiday. However, voice commerce will remain challenging for both consumers and retailers, as shoppers cannot see products or browse easily when shopping via voice assistant and retailers’ opportunities to cross-sell products and build larger basket sizes (which yield more favorable economics) are highly limited with voice commerce.
• Social media will boost sales traffic more than it has in the past this holiday season due to a combination of two factors: consumers are researching more before buying and the number of fashion influencers with large social media followings is growing.

Click here to read Coresight’s coverage on US holiday retail and gain key retail insights for 2019 and prior years.