Salesforce: Global online holiday sales hit $849 billion so far
Holiday e-commerce is showing solid growth from the same period in 2023.
Global online sales for the 2024 holiday season (Nov. 1 - Dec. 14) have reached $849 billion, a 4% year-over-year increase, according to data from Salesforce. This is cooler than the 8% year-over-year global and U.S. online sales growth Salesforce recorded during the first four weeks of the 2024 holiday season, but is still a significant improvement following months of slow digital sales growth.
In addition, Salesforce reported digital sales across Cyber Week (Nov. 28 – Dec. 2) reached $76 billion in the U.S., up 7% year-over-year, and $314.9 billion globally, up 6% year-over-year. These figures exceeded initial Salesforce estimates for digital sales to reach $311 billion worldwide during Cyber Week.
[READ MORE: Salesforce: Cyber Week digital sales reach $76 billion in U.S.]
Salesforce is also releasing data and making predictions about artificial intelligence, mobile, and buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) performance during the 2024 holiday season.
AI
Since Cyber Monday (Dec. 2), retailers have increased their use of generative AI and agents by 23% week-over-week. Salesforce predicts that AI is on track to influence upward of $200 billion in holiday sales for the full holiday season, a 12% year-over-year increase.
Mobile
Salesforce data indicates that mobile wallet payments such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal continue to see high adoption, with usage increasing 16% year-over-year globally the week following Cyber Monday. Consumers will use mobile wallet payment options for 24% of all global holiday season orders, according to Salesforce predictions.
In addition, Salesforce says that mobile devices have become the primary channel for holiday shopping with adoption continuing to increase as consumer experiences improve.
According to Salesforce, 78% of all global digital site traffic came from mobile devices since Nov. 1, with mobile also accounting for 69% of all online orders since Nov. 1. Salesforce projects that 83% of all online traffic and 76% of all online orders will be driven by mobile from Dec. 23-25.
BOPIS
Salesforce reports that BOPIS accounted for 21% of online orders in the week following Cyber Monday. During the weekend of Dec. 21-22, Salesforce predicts that the number of BOPIS orders will double compared to the rest of the season, accounting for nearly 40% of all online orders for retailers leveraging the in-store fulfillment feature.
Other findings
- 6% of all orders since Nov. 1 were purchased with buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) options.
- Since Nov. 1, about 8.3% of purchases have been returned, up from 6.6% in 2023.
- Salesforce expects the global return rate to peak at 13% during Christmas and Boxing Week (Dec. 23-28) , up from 12% in 2023, with more than $133 billion worth of orders purchased this holiday season to be returned in total.
Salesforce analyzed aggregated data to produce holiday insights from the activity of more than 1.5 billion global shoppers across more than 89 countries, with a focus on 18 key markets: the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, the Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan, Australia, and New Zealand), Switzerland, Latin America (LAM), the Middle East and Africa (MEA), Eastern Europe, Belgium, and the Nordics.
