The dominant digital path to purchase begins with a product search—often unbranded—during which the consumer demonstrates intent. They are subsequently delivered paid and organic results for relevant brands and retailers, steering them in the direction of a conversion event. But what about all those times when a consumer doesn’t know what they want? That’s the opportunity for discovery, and where social commerce platforms are beginning to fill the void.

Who really holds the purse strings?

With many retail stores temporarily closed during the pandemic, and more consumers turning online to buy goods, major social networks have taken steps to improve their ecommerce offerings.

Click and collect has been a growing trend for some time now as US consumers found they enjoyed the convenience and cost-savings of purchasing online and picking up their order on the way home from work or while running errands.

During the pandemic, consumers made fewer local searches, and local search advertising dropped dramatically.

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.

Amid a pandemic and economic downturn, many consumers are more cognizant about the money they’re spending, and the upcoming holiday season is no exception.

Budget cuts and advertising pullbacks are giving companies in industries like retail, accessories and entertainment new reasons to explore the benefits of these technologies.

As the pandemic caused widespread shutdowns, consumers who traditionally preferred brick-and-mortar retail shifted at least some of their spending to digital channels.

UK consumers’ shopping habits have undergone a change that is unlikely to be reversed. According to our latest forecast, nonecommerce retail sales will drop by 16.0% this year, followed by a recovery in 2021. However, sales will never reach pre-pandemic levels.

Retail ecommerce in Western Europe was already growing at a healthy clip, both in aggregate and as a share of overall retail, but we now expect that the pandemic will cause overall spending to increase much faster than anticipated. Even as overall retail declines by 9.9% in the region, we estimate that ecommerce sales will jump by 16.9% this year—well up from our pre-pandemic forecast of 8.8%.

Total retail sales worldwide are expected to hit $23.358 trillion in 2020, down 5.7% from 2019—and nearly 12% below our pre-pandemic estimate of $26.459 trillion.

After eMarketer's February 2020 forecast projected modest growth of 2.8% to $5.621 trillion in total US retail sales, the coronavirus pandemic then took the US economy by storm, causing closures, stay-at-home orders, and a decline in the demand of non-essential goods.

As the coronavirus pandemic leaves many fearing for their health and jobs, consumers are shifting their time and money toward things with immediate utility in daily life. But they're not entirely closed off to companies with products that don't fall under that category — brands can still prove their value during the crisis by providing help to others.

Clothing and apparel retailers will see steep declines in 2020 as spending on discretionary items comes to a near halt amid the ongoing pandemic. We forecast a drop of nearly 22% in 2020 for total sales of apparel and accessories, which equates to a year-over-year loss of over $100 billion.

Frictionless commerce, a trend permeating many facets of the customer journey today, leverages technology to improve the retail experience by saving people time and hassle. And arguably the most competitive battleground in frictionless commerce is in fast and free ecommerce delivery.

Even with a partial lifting of lockdown measures, the coronavirus continues to limit movement of people—and this has hit the UK high street hard. From retailers with a high dependency on physical stores to restaurants and coffee shops without delivery facilities, the obstacles have proven insurmountable for some. For others, the longer-term question is, "Will the UK high street be able to recover when (and if) normalcy returns?"

Due to the pandemic, retailers are currently struggling with finances, logistics and maintaining relevance. With stay-at-home orders still in place indefinitely, many companies are wondering when they can get back to business as usual.

With the impact of the coronavirus still ricocheting throughout the economy, it can be difficult to envision retail one day returning to normal. And yet, somehow it will—and much of it will look virtually indistinguishable from the pre-crisis reality. But certain changes in consumer behavior will be lasting.

eBay’s US retail ecommerce sales are continuing to fall year over year as a result of lower marketing investment, changes to seller fees and new internet sales tax laws.