In-person shopping and e-commerce behavioral changes will be tested this 2021 holiday shopping season. Physical stores will need to enhance not only their customer experience, but also their employee experience. Before your business can benefit from marketers’ holiday insights, you must have a solid foundational marketing strategy. Here are four 2021 holiday shopping season trends to look for or implement for your business.
Enhanced customer and employee experience
Job openings increased to 10 million at the start of August in the United States. The desperation in hiring and maintaining employees is creating a new dynamic within the workplace. Companies will look to enhance the holiday shopping season by incentivizing not only customers but employees to show appreciation.
Cleanliness
Coming out of the height of the pandemic, shops and malls are beginning to fully open up again as people are increasingly feeling more comfortable exploring life again. Retail shops will look to focus on cleanliness to assure protection and security for all shoppers and employees.
Holiday shopping
Many companies and retailers will start their sales and promotions a little bit earlier than usual. This will help limit large crowd gatherings in the name of safety, while also increasing profits due to changes in people’s shopping behaviors during the pandemic.
E-commerce & brick and mortar
Digital sales offered through digital stores and marketplaces will be expanded larger than ever. While many people still prefer the in-person shopping experience for various reasons such as physical shopping perspective and risk of late delivery, you will see many ways online retailers will entice those to choose the online experience. Online marketplaces like Amazon have already begun promoting sales to stay ahead. However, in-person shopping existence will never cease to exist. Physical stores will look to incentivize in-person shoppers to continue visiting stores through sales, enhanced in-store atmosphere, and in-store exclusive items.
