sforce: These are the trends that underpin a record-breaking Cyber Week

The Javits Center in New York City completed construction on its north side campus. It added over 1 million square feet over five floors. This expansion cost $1.5 billion and included a rooftop farm. The Salesforce World Tour took control of the massive space for one-day this week. It previously visited Tokyo and Boston.

Rob Garf, VP & GM Retail, was available to discuss prospects for retail and ecommerce following a booming Cyber Week in November.

The World Tour: Why? Although the Salesforce World Tour isn’t new, it’s not as well-known as Dreamforce and Salesforce Connections. Salesforce Connections is an annual conference that focuses on marketing and commerce.

Garf stated, “It’s about bringing magic to areas that have a high concentration” of customers. We want to bring the community together, but not everyone can make it to all our cornerstone events. It’s great for our partners as well, because they may not be able to travel out into the world and see our customers.

Retail rollercoaster. Ecommerce was booming during the pandemic. Brick-and-mortar retailers faced difficulties. Despite the continuing supply chain crisis and rumors about recession, ecommerce has been resilient. Cyber Week saw record-breaking global online sales of $281 billion.

This insight and others are based on aggregated data derived from online shopping activity in over 60 countries.

Get deeper: Holiday season kicks off with record sales

Garf said, “A rollercoaster is a good description of it.” We saw a surge in digital sales because many people were unable, except for the most essential, to shop at physical stores. According to our Shopping Index, there was a 40% rise in net new digital shoppers over the course of 2020. These were people who went online and sent emails but didn’t click the buy button. These people also bought whole new categories — take for example grocery.

Although digital commerce has seen a decline in the past year, Garf does not believe that digital and physical are in conflict. “I’m more interested in how retailers can streamline the mobile experience for the customer out of the store to when they actually go into the store so it is not disjointed.”

It works the other way too. “Our research has shown that 60% of digital orders are now influenced or made by physical stores.” This makes sense as an industry, but now we’re seeing the opposite phenomenon.

It was a quiet start to the holiday season. The sales numbers dropped in the week leading up to Cyber Week after a spike before Amazon’s Prime event. This was likely due to other retailers discounting ahead. However, sales in the U.S. rose 9% YoY (2% globally) over Cyber Week.

Garf explained that the reason retailers began the season with poor deals was because they didn’t have any. “Consumers noticed, they waited and weren’t patient; it paid off.” Garf describes this as “discount poultry.” Retailers begin the holiday season with a set discount calendar. “After the first weekend, they tear it up, call an audible, and chase the deal — which, in reality, is a race down to the bottom.”

Retailers believed that consumers are now more likely to buy earlier after the two-years of inventory and delivery problems. They didn’t launch with the best deals. “Consumers returned to pre-pandemic purchasing. Cyber Week was full of aggressive deals that showed a strong correlation between purchases and discounts.

Trends in mobile and social commerce. Garf stated that “people weren’t on-the-go the last two years during holidays.” “We saw a shift toward desktop. We saw an increase in mobile traffic, purchases, and traffic referrals via social media on mobile devices, this year compared to the previous two years.

Cyber Week saw 75% of traffic being mobile and, depending on the category, around 60% of orders. Why? The reason? People are returning to travel. We saw an increase in sales on Thanksgiving between 6 and 10 p.m., and mobile in particular.

Get deeper: What’s ecommerce?

Slack for retail. Slack was acquired by Salesforce two years ago. It now plays a crucial role in the retail sector. Garf stated that retailers are now taking Slack beyond its technology function and bringing it into their stores for collaboration and communication. Stores can also communicate with one another, not only can they have in-store communication.

“We are seeing service agents and stores communicate with suppliers to get visibility into when products will become available. They are swarming on it instantly; you don’t have to wait for two weeks for an e-mail.”

Why we care. All marketers need to understand that the pendulum swings and that it is multi-dimensional. It shifted from desktop to mobile during the pandemic. Now it is swinging back. It did swing from digital to physical, but it is now moving in the opposite direction. This will lead to a bidirectional relationship between digital and physical (research mobile, buy in-store; or, visit in-store, buy digitall).

The pendulum will continue swinging. This is unless we are on the verge of a prolonged period of peace and well being for the planet. And who’s betting? Marketers have to pay attention to the direction that buyers are going and to understand that the customer journey is complex.

The post Salesforce – The trends underpinning a record-breaking Cyber Week was first published on MarTech.