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Exploring Holiday Retail Growth: Across Channels

April 1, 2022

Photo Source: Unsplash, Priscilla D.

Exploring growth across every channel

2021 holiday sales growth performed well across every channel, with brick-and-mortar sales exceeding our expectations and ecommerce sales slightly underperforming. Total holiday retail sales jumped 16.1% to $1.221 trillion in 2021.



Notably, brick-and-mortar growth outpaced ecommerce growth for the first time on record. In-store sales typically grow in the low single digits, while ecommerce has consistently posted growth in the mid-teens. This past season saw brick-and-mortar surge to growth rates more typical of ecommerce, while ecommerce barely scratched double digits—albeit from a particularly challenging 2020 comparison.


Non-ecommerce holiday sales jumped 17.3% to $1.017 trillion, surpassing the $1 trillion milestone and gaining share on ecommerce for the first time on record. What’s more, the massive gain wasn’t simply a rebound off mid-pandemic declines—holiday 2020 brick-and-mortar was actually up from the prior year.


Ecommerce growth reached double digits, rising 10.4% to $204.20 billion, a solid performance following the dramatic 32.0% surge in 2020. While this was our lowest holiday ecommerce growth rate on record, we believe this was primarily driven by the year-ago comparisons.


Ecommerce reached record levels as conversion improved. We estimate that ecommerce accounted for 45.9% of holiday ecommerce sales, up from 44.2% the prior year. Per Adobe, smartphones drove a record 61% of retail visits and 43% of spending.





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