The 2020 holiday season’s unprecedented ecommerce surge helped total US retail spending remain positive, setting the tone for healthy outlook for 2021 holiday season growth.

Business Insider Intelligence research analyst Daniel Keyes, eMarketer principal analyst Andrew Lipsman, and senior forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence Cindy Liu discuss the biggest takeaways from how Thanksgiving holiday shopping went this year. They then talk about the best ways brands can reach female holiday shoppers during the pandemic and how Walmart and Target performed in Q3.

This will be a tough year for holiday season retail in the UK. Shoppers will spend less in 2020, and much of their spend will fall outside the traditional November–December time frame, leading to the lowest holiday retail sales total since 2015.

eMarketer senior analyst Bill Fisher hosts senior forecasting analyst Cindy Liu, research analyst Man-Chung Cheung, researcher Xiaodi Xu, and research analyst at Insider Intelligence Matteo Ceurvels to discuss holiday shopping around the world. They talk about the origins of Thanksgiving weekend shopping, why China's Singles' Day is the largest shopping holiday in the world, and how the Buen Fin in Mexico is adapting in 2020.

Retailers are bracing for a softer holiday season due to the pandemic. They will see, however, a major shift to ecommerce this holiday season.

The 2020 US holiday season, set amid the backdrop of a pandemic-driven consumer economy, will see an unprecedented shift to ecommerce.

The 2019 holiday season capped a tough year for physical retailers in the UK, with brick-and-mortar sales down for the second year running. However, strong gains in retail ecommerce sales meant that overall, retail sales saw growth during the season.

The 2019 holiday season posted modest retail sales growth amid a strong consumer economy but challenging calendar. With more economic risks ahead, the 2020 season may be even more challenged for growth.

We thought 2019 would be the year when social properties finally started making measurable gains in social commerce, and we were right. Instagram led the way, with several new shopping features, including Checkout, that make it easier for consumers to go from inspiration to purchase.

In a RetailMeNot survey, 68% of consumers said this year’s compressed holiday shopping season will affect their shopping and 15% said they’ll be more stressed about getting their shopping done on time.

The term "Cyber Monday" was first introduced to the retail world in 2005 via a press release from Shop.org. What is now the moniker of one of the biggest shopping holidays of the year was coined by members of the organization and its then-executive director Scott Silverman.

Positive US macroeconomic conditions will contribute to the first-ever $1 trillion holiday season, but retailers facing a series of headwinds should pay attention to seven key trends that will determine their ultimate success.

As powerhouses like Amazon, Walmart and Target roll out same-day or one-day shipping initiatives, it can be difficult for smaller retailers to keep up. But with the holiday season around the corner, it’s important for retailers to understand that while fast shipping is a key consideration, free shipping is often a requirement.

As a retail email marketer, you are probably planning your year-end holiday marketing campaigns right now. An NRF report shows that 40% of consumers plan on starting their holiday shopping before November 1, a number that includes a substantial 12% who reported that they will begin before September 1.

Facebook, Google and Amazon are engaged in a game of thrones—an epic battle for digital supremacy. The anointed one will be whichever company stakes its claim to all three coins of the digital realm: media, advertising and commerce.

Despite protests, technical concerns and stiff competition from ecommerce rivals, Amazon managed to hold its most successful Prime Day yet. Though the company did not disclose its sales figures—or how many new Prime members were added—Amazon announced that it sold 175 million items during the two-day event and surpassed its combined sales total from Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2018.

2018 was a banner year for US holiday retail sales across both brick-and-mortar and ecommerce. But with more economic uncertainty ahead, the 2019 holiday season is not shaping up to be quite as strong.

Generating $3.7 billion in online sales in 2018 while boasting an impressive 28% year-over-year growth rate, Thanksgiving cemented its status as its own online shopping phenomenon.

eMarketer's "Do You Have a Second?" is a mini-podcast that offers a quick hit of the latest digital data. Today, we’re talking about online returns for the holiday season, apparel discounting over the Thanksgiving shopping period and consumers' resolutions for the New Year.

In this Analyst Webinar presentation, made possible by BigCommerce, eMarketer’s principal retail analyst Andrew Lipsman provides an exclusive breakdown of what retailers have experienced so far this year, and what that means for the holiday season as a whole.