Sky-high inflation didn’t dampen the holiday spirit of American consumers last year. A report from Adobe Analytics revealed that online sales over the holiday season rose 3.5% year-over-year to $211.7 billion. This is above Adobe’s previous estimate of 2.5% growth to $210.1 billion, and a record for e-commerce sales during the retail season. Online sales during Cyber Week totaled about $35.3 billion.
Record discounts drove the uptick in online shopping. Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said that while customers were willing to pay more in 2021 for holiday purchases, shoppers were thriftier and more willing to wait for a lower price in 2022.
“Retailers have to really adjust to the consumers’ terms now,” Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, told CNBC. “They’re in a much different position than where they were during the pandemic where it was just about the consumer trying to acquire goods as quickly as possible and the retailers were really in the driver’s seat.”
The spike in e-commerce spending over the holiday season bodes well for the Neuberger Berman Connected Consumer ETF (NYSE Arca: NBCC), which targets companies that demonstrate significant growth potential from connectivity-based consumerism.
“Retailers need to reimagine their technology or business model to connect with the Gen Y and Gen Z consumers,” said John Aguilar, senior vice president and head of U.S. intermediary marketing at Neuberger Berman. “How are companies reimagining themselves to future-proof their business to connect with that digitally native cohort?”
Launched in April, NBCC spans a broad range of industries globally and may invest in companies of any market cap. The team will evaluate the web search and spending tendencies of millions of consumers and the daily call transcripts and filings of over 4,000 public companies to identify the best opportunities for mass adoption in the digital age. NBCC is managed by Kevin McCarthy, John San Marco, Kai Cui, Timothy Creedon, and Hari Ramanan.
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